Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1883 — The Childhood of a Poet. [ARTICLE]

The Childhood of a Poet.

Tlie wind that goes blowing where it listeth, once, in the early beginning of this century, came sweeping through the garden of this old Lincolnshire rectory, and, as the wind blew, a stnrdy child of 5 years old with shining locks stood opening his arms upon the blast and letting himself be blown along, and as he traveled on be made his first line of poetry and said, “I hear a voice that’s speaking in the wind,” and he tossed his arms, and the gust whirled on, sweeping into the great abyss of winds. One might perhaps still trace in the noble familiar face of our Poet Laureate the features of this child, one of many deep-eyed sons and daughters bom in the quiet rectory among the elm trees. Alfred Tennyson was born on the 6th of Angnst, 1809. He has heard many and many a voice calling to him since the time when he listened to the wind as he played alone in his father’s garden, or joined the other children at their games and jousts. They were a noble little olan of poets and of knights, coming of a knightly race, with castles to defend, with mimic tournaments to fight. Somersby was so far away from the world, so behindhand in its echoes (which mnst have come there softened through all manner of green and tranquil things, and as it were hashed into pastoral silence), that though the early part of the century was stirring with the clang of legions, few of i;s rumors seem to have reached the children. They never heard at the time of the battle of Waterloo. They grew up together playing their own games, living their own life; and where is such a life to be fonnd as that of a happy, eager family of boys and girls before doubt, the steps of time, the shocks of chance, the blows of death, hare come to shake their creed ? These handsome children had beyond most children that wondrous toy at their command which some people call imagination. Tflfe boys plaved great games like Arthur’s knights; they were champions and warriors defending a stone heap, or again they would set up opposing camps with a king in the midst of each. The king was a willow wand stuck into the ground, with an’ outer circle of immortals to defend him of firmer, stiffer sticks. Then each party would come with stones, hurling at each other’s king, and trying to overthrow him. Perhaps as the day wore on they, became romancers, leaving the jousts" deserted. When dinner-time came, and they all sat round the table, each in turn put a chapter of his history underneath the potato bowl—long endless histories, chapter after chapter diffuse, absorbing, unending, as are the stories of 'real life of which each sunrise opens on a new part; some of these romances were in letters, like Clarissa Harlowe. Alfred used to tell a story which lasted for months, and which was called “Tlie Old Horse.” Alfred’s first verses, so I once heard him say, were written upon a slate which iiis brother. Charles put into hi* hand on! Sunday at Louth, when all the elders of the party were going into church, and the child was left alone. Charles gave him a subject—the flow ers in the garden—and when he camt back from church little Alfred brought the slate to his brother all covered with written lines of blank verse. Thej were made on the models of “Seasons,” the only poetry he had evei read. One can picture.it all to one’s self, the flowers in the garden, the "•verses; .~4heiljrtie-poefc.':with.„waitmg eye** and the young brother scanning the lines. “Yes, you can write,” said Charles, and he gave Alfred back the slate;- -—— ' — 77I have also heard another story of his grandfather, later on, asking him to write an elegy on his grandmother, who had recently died, and, when it .was written, putting 10 shillings into, his hands and saying, “There, that is the first money you have ever earned by your poetry," and, take my word for it, Ritchie, in Harper’s May mine .