Night would not be, though stars should cease to shine!
Note 1. “Days and Hours,” by Frederick Tennyson, 1854. We have taken a liberty with the author, and with the reader, in calling these stanzas sonnets, and setting them forth in the present manner; for though sonnets they are in point of construction, after a favorite illegitimate fashion, yet the author does not so call them, nor in his pages are they thus distinguished by headings. They form portions, and not even consecutive portions, of a poem consisting of twelve of them, entitled Martha; so that perhaps we have wronged them in that respect also. But they so worthily record a beautiful character, and it is so pleasant to see the names of this family of poets in conjunction,—for Frederick Tennyson is a brother of the Laureate’s,—that, as he does not appear to have written any sonnets professed, we were tempted to bring him and his heroine into our volume in this manner. [back]
