Contents

Ballads and other poems:
The First Quarrel
Rizpah
The Northern Cobbler
The Revenge: a Ballad of the Fleet
The village wife; or, The Entah
In the Children's Hospital
Dedicatory Poem to the Princess Alice
The Defence of Lucknow
Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Corham
Columbus
The Voyage of Maeldune
De Profundis (The Two Greetings, The Human Cry)

Sonnets:
Prefatory Sonne to the 'Nineteenth Century'
To the Rev. W.H. Brookfield
Montenegro
To Victor Hugo

Translations, etc.:
Battle of Brunanburh
Achilles over the Trench
To the Princess Frederica of Hanover on her Marriage
Sir John Franklin
To Dante

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson FRS (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was a British poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, "Timbuktu". He published his first solo collection of poems, Poems Chiefly Lyrical in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which remain some of Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were included in this volume.
As source material for his poetry, Tennyson used a wide range of subject matter ranging from medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic situations to observations of nature. The influence of John Keats and other Romantic poets published before and during his childhood is evident from the richness of his imagery and descriptive writing. He also handled rhythm masterfully. The insistent beat of Break, Break, Break emphasises the relentless sadness of the subject matter. Tennyson's use of the musical qualities of words to emphasise his rhythms and meanings is sensitive.

Rizpah, a poem by Tennyson, published in Ballads and Other Poems (1880), the monologue of a mother who collects the unhallowed bones of her son night by night from the foot of the gallows and buries them secretly in the churchyard.