Page:Tennyson; the Leslie Stephen lecture.djvu/26

 of Tennyson's poetry in Cranford:—'This young man comes and tells me that ash buds are black; and I look, and they are black.' In like manner many people who had played cards all their lives must have read the Rape of the Lock and been told for the first time by that other young poet that the King of Diamonds is always seen in profile, and must have looked and verified the statement that the only King who carries the globe is the King of Clubs. Tennyson's Princess is full of things that make it a modern counterpart to the Rape of the Lock. A poet's quality may be proved in his least substantial work, and this that follows is Tennyson's poetry, not at its highest, but no less authentic than the highest:—