Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TENNYSON, by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH


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TENNYSON, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Shakespeare and milton - what third blazoned name
Last Line: Will find no gift, where reverence is, unmeet.
Subject(s): Tennyson, Alfred (1809-1892); Writing & Writers; Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron


SHAKESPEARE and Milton -- what third blazoned
name
Shall lips of after-ages link to these?
His who, beside the wild encircling seas,
Was England's voice, her voice with one acclaim,
For three score years; whose word of praise was
fame,
Whose scorn gave pause to man's inquities.
What strain was his in that Crimean war?
A bugle-call in battle; a low breath,
Plaintive and sweet, above the fields of death!
So year by year the music rolled afar,
From Euxine wastes to flowery Kandahar,
Bearing the laurel or the cypress wreath.

Others shall have their little space of time,
Their proper niche and bust, then fade away
Into the darkness, poets of a day;
But Thou, O builder of enduring rhyme,
Thou shalt not pass! Thy fame in every clime
On earth shall live where Saxon speech has
sway.

Waft me this verse across the winter sea,
Through light and dark, through mist and blind-
ing sleet,
O wintry winds, and lay it at his feet;
Though the poor gift betray my poverty,
At his feet lay it: it may chance that he
Will find no gift, where reverence is, unmeet.




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