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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


SONNET TO WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY by ALFRED TENNYSON

Poet Analysis

First Line: FAREWELL, MACREADY, SINCE TONIGHT WE PART
Last Line: DWELLS PLEASED, THROUGH TWICE A HUNDRED YEARS, ON THEE.
Subject(s): ACTORS & ACTRESSES; MACREADY, WILLIAM CHARLES (1793-1873);

FAREWELL, Macready, since to-night we part;
Full-handed thunders often have confessed
Thy power, well-used to move the public breast.
We thank thee with our voice, and from the heart.
Farewell, Macready, since this night we part,
Go, take thine honors home; rank with the best,
Garrick and statelier Kemble, and the rest
Who made a nation purer through their art.
Thine is it that our drama did not die,
Nor flicker down to brainless pantomime,
And those gilt gauds men-children swarm to see.
Farewell, Macready, moral, grave, sublime;
Our Shakespeare's bland and universal eye
Dwells pleased, through twice a hundred years, on thee.





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