Chapter 9

--LAST YEARS.

The end of 1884 saw the publication of Tiresias and other Poems,
dedicated to "My good friend, Robert Browning," and opening with the
beautiful verses to one who never was Mr Browning's friend, Edward
FitzGerald. The volume is rich in the best examples of Tennyson's
later work. Tiresias, the monologue of the aged seer, blinded by
excess of light when he beheld Athene unveiled, and under the curse
of Cassandra, is worthy of the author who, in youth, wrote OEnone and
Ulysses. Possibly the verses reflect Tennyson's own sense of public
indifference to the voice of the poet and the seer. But they are of
much earlier date than the year of publication:-

"For when the crowd would roar
For blood, for war, whose issue was their doom,
To cast wise words among the multitude
Was flinging fruit to lions; nor, in hours
Of civil outbreak, when I knew the twain
Would each waste each, and bring on both the yoke
Of stronger states, was mine the voice to curb
The madness of our cities and their kings.
Who ever turn'd upon his heel to hear
My warning that the tyranny of one
Was prelude to the tyranny of all?
My counsel that the tyranny of all
Led backward to the tyranny of one?
This power hath work'd no good to aught that lives."

The conclusion was a favourite with the author, and his blank verse
never reached a higher strain:-

"But for me,
I would that I were gather'd to my rest,
And mingled with the famous kings of old,
On whom about their ocean-islets flash
The faces of the Gods--the wise man's word,
Here trampled by the populace underfoot,
There crown'd with worship--and these eyes will find
The men I knew, and watch the chariot whirl
About the goal again, and hunters race
The shadowy lion, and the warrior-kings,
In height and prowess more than human, strive
Again for glory, while the golden lyre
Is ever sounding in heroic ears
Heroic hymns, and every way the vales
Wind, clouded with the grateful incense-fume
Of those who mix all odour to the Gods
On one far height in one far-shining fire."

Then follows the pathetic piece on FitzGerald's death, and the
prayer, not unfulfilled -

"That, when I from hence
Shall fade with him into the unknown,
My close of earth's experience
May prove as peaceful as his own."

The Ancient Sage, with its lyric interludes, is one of Tennyson's
meditations on the mystery of the world and of existence. Like the
poet himself, the Sage finds a gleam of light and hope in his own
subjective experiences of some unspeakable condition, already
recorded in In Memoriam. The topic was one on which he seems to have
spoken to his friends with freedom:-

"And more, my