Enoch's _ocean spoil_
In ocean-smelling osier.


But these peculiarities are less common in the earlier poems than in the
later: it was a vicious habit which grew on him.

But, if exception may sometimes be taken to his diction, no exception
can be taken to his rhythm. No English poet since Milton, Tennyson's
only superior in this respect, had a finer ear or a more consummate
mastery over all the resources of rhythmical expression. What colours
are to a painter rhythm is, in description, to the poet, and few have
rivalled, none have excelled Tennyson in this. Take the following:--


And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain
_On the bald street strikes the blank day_.

--'In Memoriam'.

See particularly 'In Memoriam', cvii., the lines beginning "Fiercely
flies," to "darken on the rolling brine": the description of the island
in 'Enoch Arden'; but specification is needless, it applies to all his
descriptive poetry. It is marvellous that he can produce such effects by
such simple means: a mere enumeration of particulars will often do it,
as here:--


No gray old grange or lonely fold,
Or low morass and whispering reed,