the "fairy arrows," the "globe" of pappus fruit are triumphs of happy choice. Pages could be filled with examples of this class, proving, if proof were required, that Tennyson knows all the plants and knows them thoroughly in every phase of their growth, that he is not content with a vague general notion of their features, but studies them in their minutest details. This is seen in "The foxglove's cluster of dappled bells," where "dappled " is the very word for the spotted throat of the digitalis corolla.

So

Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire,
The little speedwell's darling blue,
Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew,
Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire.

Here every line is a study, the only phrase that gives us pause being dropping-wells, which is apt to be read as if there were no connecting hyphen. When it is viewed as one word, the meaning is clear. As a parallel to this passage, the description of the cottage gardens in Aylmer's Field might be quoted, but I content myself with one or two lines.

A close-set robe of jasmine sown with stars,

Here was one that, summer-blanch'd,

Was parcel-bearded with the traveller's-joy
In Autumn.

The clematis was white in summer, but in the autumn showed the characteristic hairy fruit of that climbing plant.

Here is Tennyson's picture of the sunflower :

Unloved the sunflower, shining fair,

Ray round with flames her disk of seed
And many a rose-carnation feed

With summer-spice the humming air.

The poet means that in the garden of his early home the flowers will bloom unregarded by the new-comers until associations grow up to endear the place to them: but mark how the desire for freshness of allusion guides him to choose somewhat unusual cases.

Here is another miniature painting. The Prince's mother had

not a thought, a touch

But pure as lines of green that streak the white
Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves.

Clearly our poet is one who gazes closely into the throat of every blossom he sees, be it large or small. But he can take a large view too, as when he describes a cloth of palest gold, shining

As shines

A field of charlock in the sudden sun

Between two showers.

Another dress was

in colour like the satin-shining palm

On sallows in the windy gleams of March.

We saw that he was versed in the buds of trees, but he is equally at home in flower buds. The Prince's feminine attire, having been badly treated,

was

and

more crumpled than a poppy from the sheath,

like a blossom, vermeil-white

That lightly breaks a faded flower sheath
Moved the fair Enid, all in faded silk.

Lynette's little retroussé nose was

Tip-tilted like the petal of a flower.

Enoch Arden's wife's shop was

order'd all

Almost as neat and close as Nature packs
Her blossom or her seedling.

The aestivation of flower buds and the placentation of carpels are outside the ordinary man's knowledge, and seldom form part of a poet's equipment, but here our poet shows that they are familiar subjects to him,

Even the diseases of plants, the parasites that attack them, are part of his vocabulary. Sir Kay

was a man

wan-sallow as the plant that feels itself Root-bitten by the white lichen.

And again—

No heart have you or such

As fancies like the vermin in a nut

Have fretted all to dust and bitterness.

He knows too the struggle for existence that rages among plants as among animals; this he would naturally pick up from Darwin, to whom it was of the greatest import.

And knowing that of fifty seeds

She often brings but one to bear.

Moreover, he notes how Nature, abhorring vacuum, will in time occupy every unoccupied corner with growth of some kind.

Even bones are bleached

And lichened into colour with the crags.

And Nature

Fills out the homely quick-set screens

And makes the purple lilac ripe ;

Steps from her airy hill and greens

The swamp, where hums the dropping snipe
With moss and braided marish-pipe.

This is just the poet's way of saying that the spring will revive vegetation again, but mark how fresh is the selection of particulars. The hedges will fill out, the lilac will ripen its fruit, the marsh will grow green, and the equisetum, with its "braided " stems, will rise once more. Freshness, novelty, and the avoidance of the usual and the commonplace are here at their highest.

Here is another variant of the same theme :

Now fades the last long streak of snow,

Now burgeons every maze of quick

About the flowering squares and thick

By ashen roots the violets blow.

Note too how when he wishes to fix a colour in the eye he chooses distinctive flowers to bring it home. All "Lent-lily in hue"; "in colour like an April daffodilly"; "as clean and white as privet when it flowers"; "a clear germander eye ".

How well he catches the sound of leaves or their characteristic appearance in sunlight! "The dry-tongued laurels' pattering talk"; "momently the twinkling laurel scattered silver lights". The Portugal laurel has a hard, glossy, holly-like leaf, and both of these descriptions are happy and

correct.

These passages by no means exhaust Tennyson's