Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1893 — Tennyson's Early Efforts. [ARTICLE]

Tennyson's Early Efforts.

Tennyson began his poetic life, or, at any rate, his poetic inspiration, in early childhood, says the Waverly Magazine. It is recorded of him that when he was live years old he exclaimed, as the wind was sweeping through his father’s garden: “I .hear 4 voice that's speaking in the wind." His first poetic composition came somewhat later. Mrs. Ritchie, in her recollections of the poet, says: “Alfred’s first verses, so I once heard him remark, were written upon a slate which his brother Charles put into his hand one Sunday at, Louth, when all the ciders of the family were going to church and the child was left alone. Charles gave him the subject—the flowers in the garden—and when he came b'ack from church little Alfred brought the slate to his brother, all covered with written lines of blank verse. They, were made on ihe model of Thompson’s ‘Seasons,’ the only poetry he had ever read. One* can picture it all—the flowers in the garanxious eyes and the young brother scanning the lines. ‘ ‘ Yes, you can write, ” said Charles, giving back the slate. “I lvttve also heard another story. Later on his grandfather asked him to write an elegy on his grandmother. who had died, and when it was written lie put 10 shillings into the bov's I; a ml. saying: “There, that is the first money you have ever earned by your poetiy, and, take mv word for it. it will be the last.”