Tennyson's lines are a close parallel:-
"His memory long will live alone
In all our hearts, as mournful light
That broods above the fallen sun,
And dwells in heaven half the night."
Though Tennyson disliked the exhibition of "the chips of the
workshop," we have commented on them, on the early readings of the
early volumes. They may be regarded more properly as the sketches of
a master than as "chips," and do more than merely engage the idle
curiosity of the fanatics of first editions. They prove that the
poet was studious of perfection, and wisely studious, for his
alterations, unlike those of some authors, were almost invariably for
the better, the saner, the more mature in taste. The early readings
are also worth notice, because they partially explain, by their
occasionally fantastic and humourless character, the lack of early
and general recognition of the poet's genius. The native prejudice
of mankind is not in favour of a new poet. Of new poets there are
always so many, most of them bad, that nature has protected mankind
by an armour of suspiciousness. The world, and Lockhart, easily
found good reasons for distrusting this new claimant of the ivy and
the bays: moreover, since about 1814 there had been a reaction
against new poetry. The market was glutted. Scott had set everybody
on reading, and too many on writing, novels. The great reaction of
the century against all forms of literature except prose fiction had
begun.
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