The Hesperides
The Hesperides - meaning Summary
Voyage Into Uncanny Evening
Tennyson's opening scene sketches a sea voyage whose natural sounds fall away and are replaced by an uncanny, continuous singing. The mariner Hanno passes specific Mediterranean landmarks into a calm, bloom-bright coastal slope where voices rise like a dream. The poem foregrounds atmosphere and the shift from expected maritime noise to mysterious, sustained song, suggesting a border between familiar navigation and an alluring, otherworldly landscape.
Read Complete AnalysesThe Northwind fall’n, in the newstarred night Zidonian Hanno, voyaging beyond The hoary promontory of Soloë Past Thymiaterion, in calmèd bays, Between the Southern and the Western Horn, Heard neither warbling of the nightingale, Nor melody o’ the Lybian lotusflute Blown seaward from the shore; but from a slope That ran bloombright into the Atlantic blue, Beneath a highland leaning down a weight Of cliffs, and zoned below with cedarshade, Came voices, like the voices in a dream, Continuous, till he reached the other sea.
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