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
period of madness and illusion; while the third part, "The Golden
Supper"--suggested by a story of Boccaccio, and written in maturity--
is put in the mouth of another narrator, and is in a different style.
The discarded lover, visiting the vault which contains the body of
his lady, finds her alive, and restores her to her husband. The
whole finished legend is necessarily not among the author's
masterpieces. But perhaps not even Keats in his earliest work
displayed more of promise, and gave more assurance of genius. Here
and there come turns and phrases, "all the charm of all the Muses,"
which remind a reader of things later well known in pieces more
mature.
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