Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO THE MARQUIS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA, by ALFRED TENNYSON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: At times our britain cannot rest Last Line: Will mix with love for you and yours. Alternate Author Name(s): Tennyson, Lord Alfred; Tennyson, 1st Baron; Tennyson Of Aldworth And Farringford, Baron Subject(s): Blackwood, Frederick (1826-1902); Death - Children; India; Death - Babies | ||||||||
I AT times our Britain cannot rest, At times her steps are swift and rash; She moving, at her girdle clash The golden keys of East and West. II Not swift or rash, when late she lent The sceptres of her West, her East, To one that ruling has increased Her greatness and her self-content. III Your rule has made the people love Their ruler. Your viceregal days Have added fulness to the phrase Of 'Gauntlet in the velvet glove.' IV But since your name will grow with time, Not all, as honoring your fair fame Of Statesman, have I made the name A golden portal to my rhyme; V But more, that you and yours may know From me and mine, how dear a debt We owed you, and are owing yet To you and yours, and still would owe. VI For he -- your India was his Fate, And drew him over sea to you -- He fain had ranged her thro' and thro', To serve her myriads and the State, -- VII A soul that, watch'd from earliest youth, And on thro' many a brightening year, Had never swerved for craft or fear, By one side-path, from simple truth; VIII Who might have chased and claspt Renown And caught her chaplet here -- and there In haunts of jungle-poison'd air The flame of life went wavering down; IX But ere he left your fatal shore, And lay on that funereal boat, Dying, 'Unspeakable,' he wrote, 'Their kindness,' and he wrote no more; X And sacred is the latest word; And now the Was, the Might-have-been, And those lone rites I have not seen, And one drear sound I have not heard, XI Are dreams that scarce will let me be, Not there to bid my boy farewell, When That within the coffin fell, Fell -- and flash'd into the Red Sea, XII Beneath a hard Arabian moon And alien stars. To question why The sons before the fathers die, Not mine! and I may meet him soon; XIII But while my life's late eve endures, Nor settles into hueless gray, My memories of his briefer day Will mix with love for you and yours. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LOST CHILDREN by RANDALL JARRELL THE MOURNER by LOUISE MOREY BOWMAN MELANCHOLY; AN ODE by WILLIAM BROOME SISTERS IN ARMS by AUDRE LORDE A BOTANICAL TROPE by WILLIAM MEREDITH FOR MOHAMMED ZEID OF GAZA, AGE 15 by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE A CHARACTER by ALFRED TENNYSON |
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