But Fitzgerald pointing out that the autumn landscape
was taken from the background of Titian (Lord Ellesmere’s
‘Ages of Man’) Tennyson struck out the
passage. If this was the reason he must have been
in an unusually scrupulous mood. See his ‘Life’,
i., 232.]
[Footnote 7: So Massinger, ‘City Madam’,
iii., 3:—
I am sublim’d.
Gross earth
Supports me not.
’I walk on air’.]
[Footnote 8: Cf. Dante, ‘Inferno’,
v., 81-83:—
Quali columbe dal desio chiamate,
Con 1’ ali aperte e ferme, al dolce nido Volan.]
[Footnote 9: 1842-1850. Lisping.]
[Footnote 10: In privately printed volume 1842.
His.]
First published in 1842.
This poem had been written as early as 1835, when
it was read to Fitzgerald and Spedding (’Life’,
i., 182). No alterations were made in the text
after 1853. The story in this poem was taken even
to the minutest details from a prosestory of Miss
Mitford’s, namely, ’The Tale of Dora Creswell’
(’Our Village’, vol. in., 242-53), the
only alterations being in the names, Farmer Cresswell,
Dora Creswell, Walter Cresswell, and Mary Hay becoming
respectively Allan, Dora, William, and Mary Morrison.
How carefully the poet has preserved the picturesque
touches of the original may be seen by comparing the
following two passages:—
And Dora took the child, and went her
way Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound That
was unsown, where many poppies grew. ...
She rose and took The child once more, and
sat upon the mound; And made a little wreath of
all the flowers That grew about, and tied it round
his hat.
“A beautiful child lay on the
ground at some distance, whilst a young girl,
resting from the labour of reaping, was twisting a
rustic wreath of enamelled cornflowers, brilliant
poppies ... round its hat.”
The style is evidently modelled closely on that of
the ‘Odyssey’.
With farmer Allan at the farm abode
William and Dora. William was his
son,
And she his niece. He often look’d
at them,
And often thought “I’ll make
them man and wife”.
Now Dora felt her uncle’s will in
all,
And yearn’d towards William; but
the youth, because
He had been always with her in the house,
Thought not of Dora. Then there came
a day
When Allan call’d his son, and said,
“My son: I married late, but
I would wish to see
My grandchild on my knees before I die:
And I have set my heart upon a match.
Now therefore look to Dora; she is well
To look to; thrifty too beyond her age.
She is my brother’s daughter:
he and I
Had once hard words, and parted, and he
died
In foreign lands; but for his sake I bred
His daughter Dora: take her for your
wife;
For I have wish’d this marriage,
night and day,
For many years.” But William
