rth innocent of misleading me. So
far from having read him more within these three years, I have read
him _less_, and have taken no new review, I do assure you, of his
position and character as a poet, and these facts are testified unto
by the other fact that my poetry, neither in its best features nor its
worst, is adjusted after the fashion of his school.

But I am writing too much; you will have no patience with me. 'The
Excursion' is accused of being lengthy, and so you will tell me that I
convict myself of plagiarism, _currente calamo_.

I have just finished a poem of some eight hundred lines, called
'The Vision of Poets,'[85] philosophical, allegorical--anything but
popular. It is in stanzas, every one an octosyllabic triplet, which
you will think odd, and I have not _sanguinity_ enough to defend.

May God bless you, my dearest Mr. Boyd! Yes, I heard--I was glad to
hear--of your having resumed that which used to be so great a pleasure
to you--Miss Marcus's society. I remain,

Affectionately and gratefully yours,
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

My love to dear Annie.

[Footnote 85: _Poetical Works_, i. 223.]

_To Mr. Westwood_
October 1843.

You are probably right in respect to Tennyson, for whom, with all
my admiration of him, I would willingly secure more exaltation and a
broader clasping of truth. Still, it is not possible to have so
much beauty without a certain portion of truth, the position of the
Utilitarians being true in the inverse. But I think as I did of 'uses'
and 'responsibilities,' and do hold that the poet is a preacher and
must look to his doctrine.

Perhaps Mr. Tennyson will grow more solemn, like the sun, as his day
goes on. In the meantime we have the noble 'Two Voices,' and, among
other grand intimations of a teaching power, certain stanzas to J.K.
(I think the initials are) on the death of his brother,[86] which very
deeply affected me.

Take away the last stanzas, which should be applied more definitely
to the _body_, or cut away altogether as a lie against eternal verity,
and the poem stands as one of the finest of monodies. The nature of
human grief never surely was more tenderly intimated or touched--it
brought tears to my eyes. Do read it. He is not a Christian poet, up
to this time, but let us listen and hear his next songs. He is one of
God's singers, whether he knows it or does not know it.

I am thinking, lifting up my pen, what I can write to you which
is likely to be intere