Tennyson brought out the work of his boyhood. "It was written before
I had ever seen Shelley, though it is called Shelleyan," he said; and
indeed he believed that his work had never been imitative, after his
earliest efforts in the manner of Thomson and of Scott. The only
things in The Lover's Tale which would suggest that the poet here
followed Shelley are the Italian scene of the story, the character of
the versification, and the extraordinary luxuriance and exuberance of
the imagery. {2} As early as 1868 Tennyson heard that written copies
of The Lover's Tale were in circulation. He then remarked, as to the
exuberance of the piece: "Allowance must be made for abundance of
youth. It is rich and full, but there are mistakes in it. . . . The
poem is the breath of young love."

How truly Tennysonian the manner is may be understood even from the
opening lines, full of the original cadences which were to become so
familiar:-


"Here far away, seen from the topmost cliff,
Filling with purple gloom the vacancies
Between the tufted hills, the sloping seas
Hung in mid-heaven, and half way down rare sails,
White as white clouds, floated from sky to sky."


The narrative in parts one and two (which alone were written in
youth) is so choked with images and descriptions as to be almost
obscure. It is the story, practically, of a love like that of Paul
and Virginia, but the love is not returned by the girl, who prefers
the friend of the narrator. Like the hero of Maud, the speaker has a