Selected Poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

‘And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.’ – All the scenery is very energized, reflecting, perhaps, the energetic temperament of the speaker.

‘Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,/Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.’ – An allusion to the heroic hunter via the familiar star constellation. The speaker hopes to be similarly great.

‘Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,’ – This is the famous Seven Sisters star cluster. They are ‘hunted’ by Orion and represent the speaker’s great hope for the future (both amorous and otherwise).

‘Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.’ – A lovely image of fireflies caught together in a spider’s web.

‘Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime’ – ‘sublime’ = grand, passionate, deep.

‘With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;’ – ‘fairy tales’ is not a negative comment, but indicates something stimulating to the imagination. This was the great period when scientific discoveries were beginning to stretch minds. The ‘long result of Time’ is a reference to the growing geological awareness of the immense age of the earth, and also to the very first theories of evolution (though this poem predates Darwin’s Origin of the Species ).

‘When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;’ – i.e. from which positive fruits can be drawn.

‘When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:’ – ‘closed’ = enclosed, enshrined.

‘When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;/Saw the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.—’ – Expresses the common Victorian sense of hope and progress.