In Quantity

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

　　

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On Translations of Homer Hexameters acrd Pentameters. These lame hexameters the strong-wing’d music of Homer! No—but a most burlesque barbarous experiment. When was a harsher sound ever heard, ye Muses, in England? When did a frog coarser croak upon our Helicon? Hexameters no worse than daring Germany gave us, Barbarous experiment, barbarous hexameters. Milton Alcaics. O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies, O skill’d to sing of Time or Eternity, God-gifted organ-voice of England, Milton, a name to resound for ages; Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, Starr’d from Jehovah’s gorgeous armouries, Tower, as the deep-domed empyrëan Rings to the roar of an angel onset— Me rather all that bowery loneliness, The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, And bloom profuse and cedar arches Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, Where some refulgent sunset of India Streams o’er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, And crimson-hued the stately palmwoods Whisper in odorous heights of even. Hendecasyllabics. O you chorus of indolent reviewers, Irresponsible, indolent reviewers, Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem All composed in a metre of Catullus, All in quantity, careful of my motion, Like the skater on ice that hardly bears him, Lest I fall unawares before the people, Waking laughter in indolent reviewers. Should I flounder awhile without a tumble Thro’ this metrification of Catullus, They should speak to me not without a welcome, All that chorus of indolent reviewers. Hard, hard, hard is it, only not to tumble, So fantastical is the dainty metre. Wherefore slight me not wholly, nor believe me Too presumptuous, indolent reviewers. O blatant Magazines, regard me rather— Since I blush to belaud myself a moment— As some rare little rose, a piece of inmost Horticultural art, or half coquette-like Maiden, not to be greeted unbenignly.

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