Alfred Tennyson

Tennyson, Alfred, first Baron Tennyson (1809-92) English poet, born at Somersby, Linconshire, the forth son of the rector. He was very popular in Victorian England, his poems inspired many paintings.
The Lady of Shallot, a poem, published in 1832. The subject was very popular during Victorian times and dealt with a beautiful imprisoned lady.
See: William Holman Hunt The Lady of Shalott.

Mariana
The character of Mariana from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure inspired Tennyson's poem Mariana, which described a woman waiting hopelessly in a desolate loneliness for her lover. The poem in its turn inspired Millais' Mariana, shown at the Royal Academy in 1851 it was accompanied by the lines from Tennyson:
                She only said, 'My life is dreary-
                              He cometh not' she said;
                She said, 'I am aweary, aweary -
                           I would that I were dead'.

Merlin and Vivien, poem by Tennyson, published in 1859. The wily Vivien, filled with hatred for Arthur and his court, seduces the aged wizard Merlin, the most important supporter of Arthur, and imprisons him forever in an old oak tree.
See: Sir Edward Burne-Jones The Beguiling of Merlin (Merlin and Vivien).