When twilight was falling,
Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud,
They were crying and calling,"


was a favourite of the poet.

"What birds were these?" he is said to have asked a lady suddenly,
when reading to a silent company.

"Nightingales," suggested a listener, who did not probably remember
any other fowl that is vocal in the dusk.

"No, they were rooks," answered the poet.

"Come into the Garden, Maud," is as fine a love-song as Tennyson ever
wrote, with a triumphant ring, and a soaring exultant note. Then the
poem drops from its height, like a lark shot high in heaven; tragedy
comes, and remorse, and the beautiful interlude of the


"lovely shell,
Small and pure as a pearl."


Then follows the exquisite


"O that 'twere possible,"