The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Gardener's Daughter

or; The Pictures

First published in 1842.

In the 'Gardener's Daughter' we have the first of that delightful series of poems dealing with scenes and characters from ordinary English life, and named appropriately 'English Idylls'. The originator of this species of poetry in England was Southey, in his 'English Eclogues', written before 1799. In the preface to these eclogues, which are in blank verse, Southey says: "The following eclogues, I believe, bear no resemblance to any poems in our language. This species of composition has become popular in Germany, and I was induced to attempt it by an account of the German idylls given me in conversation." Southey's eclogues are eight in number: 'The Old Mansion House', 'The Grandmother's Tale', 'Hannah', 'The Sailor's Mother', 'The Witch', 'The Ruined Cottage', 'The Last of the Family' and 'The Alderman's Funeral'. Southey was followed by Wordsworth in 'The Brothers' and 'Michael'. Southey has nothing of the charm, grace and classical finish of his disciple, but how nearly Tennyson follows him, as copy and model, may be seen by anyone who compares Tennyson's studies with 'The Ruined Cottage'. But Tennyson's real master was Theocritus, whose influence pervades these poems not so much directly in definite imitation as indirectly in colour and tone.

'The Gardener's Daughter' was written as early as 1835, as it was read to Fitzgerald in that year ('Life of Tennyson', i., 182). Tennyson originally intended to insert a prologue to be entitled 'The Antechamber', which contained an elaborate picture of himself, but he afterwards suppressed it. It is given in the 'Life', i., 233-4. This poem stands alone among the Idylls in being somewhat overloaded with ornament. The text of 1842 remained unaltered through all the subsequent editions except in line 235. After 1851 the form "tho'" is substituted for "though".

[Footnote 1: 'Cf. Romeo and Juliet', ii., vi.:--

[Footnote 2: 'Cf.' Keats, 'Ode to Nightingale':--

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.]

[Footnote 3: 'Cf'. Theocritus, 'Id'., vii., 143:--

[Greek: pant' _osden thereos mala pionos.]]

[Footnote 4: Provincial name for the goldfinch. See Tennyson's letter to the Duke of Argyll, 'Life', ii., 221.]

[Footnote 5: This passage is imitated from Theocritus, vii., 143 'seqq'.]

[Footnote 6: This passage originally ran:--

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:--

[Footnote 8: Cf. Dante, 'Inferno', v., 81-83:--

[Footnote 9: 1842-1850. Lisping.]

[Footnote 10: In privately printed volume 1842. His.]