The Day Dream Part IX Epilogue - Analysis

Brief introduction

This short epilogue to The Day-Dream reads as a graceful, slightly self-mocking address to Lady Flora: intimate, playful, and wistful. The tone mixes light amusement with a trace of regret, moving from teasing flattery to a modest confession of foolishness. Mood shifts subtly from courtly compliment to rueful humility, yet finishes with a conciliatory offering.

Relevant context

Alfred Lord Tennyson, a central Victorian poet, often balanced romantic imagination with restrained moral reflection; social ritual and courtly manners inform the speaker’s voice here. Addressing a named lady and invoking mirrors and courtly imagery reflects Victorian concerns with appearance, reputation, and poetic decorum.

Major themes

Vanity and self-awareness. The speaker invites Lady Flora to whisper to her glass that it is not surprising he finds her fair, acknowledging both flattery and the social performance of beauty. Art as play and sincerity. He calls the poem both a lay made for her delight and something earnestly wed with sport—art as a blend of amusement and genuine feeling. Folly and humility. He confesses being "all unwise" in shaping extravagance that cannot alight, signaling recognition of poetic excess and personal limitation.

Symbolic images

The glass symbolizes self-image and social reflection—Lady Flora’s whispered verdict to her mirror underscores appearance as performative. Long-tail’d birds of Paradise evoke exotic beauty and effortless flight; their inability to light suggests lovely things that cannot be grounded or made practical. Cupid-boys and "old-world trains" summon courtly pageantry and stylized love—romantic machinery upheld by youthful, decorative figures, implying artifice behind romance.

Tone and imagery working together

Vivid, ornamental images produce a ceremonial, decorative atmosphere that the speaker both revels in and gently critiques. The alternation between playful metaphors and plain admission of folly creates a voice that is courtly yet candid, allowing the poem to be at once tribute and self-parody.

Concluding insight

Ultimately the epilogue offers a modest reconciliation: the song is both a gift of sport and something "sacred" to the addressee. Tennyson suggests that beauty and poetic flourish retain meaning despite their impracticality, and that sincere feeling can inhabit even the most artful forms of courtly display.