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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TO ALFRED TENNYSON; ON HIS 'IDYLLS OF THE KINGS' by ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER

First Line: THEY TOLD ME IN THEIR SHADOWY PHRASE
Last Line: SHALL LIVE, AND DIE NO MORE!
Subject(s): TENNYSON, ALFRED (1809-1892); TENNYSON, ALFRED TENNYSON, 1ST BARON;

THEY told me in their shadowy phrase,
Caught from a tale gone by,
That Arthur, King of Cornish praise,
Died not, and would not die.

Dreams had they, that in fairy bowers
Their living warrior lies,
Or wears a garland of the flowers
That grow in Paradise.

I read the rune with deeper ken,
And thus the myth I trace: --
A bard should rise, mid future men,
The mightiest of his race.

He would great Arthur's deeds rehearse
On gray Dundagel's shore;
And so the King in laurell'd verse
Shall live, and die no more!



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