Aubrey De Vere on his first 'acquaintance' with Tennyson's Poems, Chiefly Lyrical: 'I remember most of them by heart still. Day after day my sister and I used to read them as we drove up and down the "close green ways" of our woods. Our pony soon detected our abstracted mood. Several times he nearly upset us down a bank; and often choosing his path according to his private judgement, stood still with his head hanging over a gate.'