Harold Nicolson , in 1923 , view the dreariness of Mariana and Tennyson 's other early works as an aspect that make the early works better his later work . In T. S. Eliot 's 1936 Essays Ancient and Modern , he praise Tennyson 's ability to represent the visual , tactile , auditory , and olfactory aspects of the scene . Later in 1972 , Christopher Ricks argue that the poem is " one of Tennyson 's masterpieces in the art of the penultimate . "