" Doubtless the child's voice drifted away
into sing-song, as her whole little self seemed to drift away into the
land of faery, and doubtless also the busy teacher, who was more
familiar with Jane Taylor and Cowper, was sadly puzzled. When the
child at length sat down, scarcely knowing where she was in her sudden
descent from the land of marvel, she heard the teacher say, to her
amazement and discouragement, after an ominous pause, "I wonder if any
young lady can tell me what this poem means?" There was no reply.
"Can _you_ tell us?" was the next question, pointed at the poor
little girl who had just dropped out of cloudland. "I thought it
explained itself," was the plaintive reply. With a slight air of
depreciation, in another moment the next recitation was called for,
and the dull clouds of routine shut down over the sudden glory.
"Shades of the prison-house" then and there began to close over the
growing child. One joy had for the present faded from her life, that
of a sure sympathy and understanding. Not even her teacher could see
what she saw, nor could feel what lay deep down in her own glowing
heart. Nevertheless Tennyson was henceforth a seer and a prophet to
this child and to the growing world; but for some, who could never
learn his language, he was born too late.
The picturesqueness of Scott and Byron, the simple piety of Cowper,
had satisfied the poetic and religious nature of the world up to that
time.
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