Alfred Tennyson

(Westminster, October 12, 1892)

Great man of song, whose glorious laurelled head
    Within the lap of death sleeps well at last,
Down the dark road, seeking the deathless dead,
    Thy faithful, fearless, shining soul hath passed.

Fame blows his silver trumpet o'er thy sleep,
    And Love stands broken by thy lonely lyre;
So pure the fire God gave this clay to keep,
    The clay must still seem holy for the fire.

Poor dupes of sense, we deem the close-shut eye,
    So faithful servant of his golden tongue,
Still holds the hoarded lights of earth and sky,
    We deem the mouth still full of sleeping song.

We mourn as though the great good song he gave
    Passed with the singer's own informing breath:
Ah, golden book, for thee there is no grave,
    Thine is a rhyme that shall not taste of death.

Great wife of his great heart - 'tis yours to mourn,
    Son well-beloved, 'tis yours, who loved him so:
But we! - hath death one perfect page out-torn
    From the great song whereby alone we know

The splendid spirit imperiously shy, -
    Husband to you and father - we afar
Hail poet of God, and name as one should cry:
    'Yonder a king, and yonder lo! a star!'

So great his song we deem a little while
    That Song itself with his great voice hath fled,
So grand the toga-sweep of his great style,
    So vast the theme on which his song was fed.

One sings a flower, and one a face, and one
    Screens from the world a corner choice and small,
Each toy its little laureate hath, but none
    Sings of the whole: yea, only he sang all.

Poor little bards, so shameless in your care
    To snatch the mighty laurel from his head,
Have you no fear, dwarfs in the giant's chair,
    How men shall laugh, remembering the dead?

Great is advertisement! 'tis almost fate,
    But, little mushroom-men, of puff-ball fame,
Ah, do you dream to be mistaken great
    And to be really great are just the same?

Ah, fools! he was a laureate ere one leaf
    Of the great crown had whispered on his brows;
Fame shrilled his song, Love carolled it, and Grief
    Blessed it with tears within her lonely house.

Fame loved him well, because he loved not Fame,
    But Peace and Love, all other things before,
A man was he ere yet he was a name,
    His song was much because his love was more.

Richard Le Gallienne

Richard Le Gallienne was an English author and poet born on January 20, 1866. Known for his lyrical poetry, he was a key figure in the literary circles of the fin de siècle. He contributed to the literary magazine 'The Yellow Book' and was involved with the Rhymers' Club, an influential group of London-based poets. His works often explored themes of beauty, love, and nature. His influence extended to both sides of the Atlantic, and he spent the latter part of his life in the United States, where he continued to write until his death on September 15, 1947.

Richard Le Gallienne

Beatrice

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

A New Year Letter

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

Morn

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

The Mystic Friends

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

English

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Robert Louis Stevenson - An Elegy

High on his Patmos of the Southern Seas
Our northern dreamer sleeps,
Strange stars above him, and above his grave
Strange leaves and wings their tropic splendours wave,
While, far beneath, mile after shimmering mile,
The great Pacific, with its faery deeps,
Smiles all day long its silken secret smile.

Son of a race nomadic, finding still
Its home in regions furthest from its home,
Ranging untired the borders of the world,
And resting but to roam;
Loved of his land, and making all his boast
The birthright of the blood from which he came,
Heir to those lights that guard the Scottish coast,
And caring only for a filial fame;
Proud, if a poet, he was Scotsman most,
And bore a Scottish name.

Death, that long sought our poet, finds at last,
Dea...

Richard Le Gallienne

Marmion: Introduction To Canto I

November's sky is chill and drear,
November's leaf is red and sear:
Late, gazing down the steepy linn
That hems our little garden in,
Low in its dark and narrow glen
You scarce the rivulet might ken,
So thick the tangled greenwood grew,
So feeble thrilled the streamlet through:
Now, murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen
Through bush and briar, no longer green,
An angry brook, it sweeps the glade,
Brawls over rock and wild cascade,
And foaming brown, with doubled speed,
Hurries its waters to the Tweed.

No longer Autumn's glowing red
Upon our forest hills is shed;
No more, beneath the evening beam,
Fair Tweed reflects their purple gleam:
Away hath passed the heather-bell
That bloomed so rich on Needpath Fell;
Sallow his brow, and russet b...

Walter Scott

Love-Laurel

(In Memory of Henry Kendall)


Ah! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earths breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.

For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for songs sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.

Down through the clay there comes no sound of these;
Down in the grave there is no sign of Summer,
Nor any knowledg...

Victor James Daley

The Grave Of Dibdin.

Lives there who, with unhallow'd hand, would tear,
One leaf from that immortal wreath which shades
The Hero's living brow, or decks his urn?
Breathes there who does not triumph in the thought
That "Nelson's language is his mother tongue,"
And that St. Vincent's country is his own?
Oh! these bright guerdons of renown are won
By means most palpable to sense and sight;
By days of peril and by nights of toil;
By Valour's long probation, closed at last
In Victory's arms--consummated and seal'd
In deathless Glory and immortal Fame.

Musing I stand upon his lowly grave,
Who, though he fought no battle--though he pour'd
No hostile thunders on his country's foes,
Achieved for Britain triumphs, less array'd
"In pomp and circumstance," nor visible
To vul...

Thomas Gent

Ode On The Death Of The Duke of Wellington

1852

I.

Bury the Great Duke
With an empires lamentation;
Let us bury the Great Duke
To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation;
Mourning when their leaders fall,
Warriors carry the warriors pall,
And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall.


II.

Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore?
Here, in streaming Londons central roar.
Let the sound of those he wrought for,
And the feet of those he fought for,
Echo round his bones for evermore.


III.

Lead out the pageant: sad and slow,
As fits an universal woe,
Let the long, long procession go,
And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow,
And let the mournful martial music blow;
The last great Englishman is low.


IV.

Mourn,...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

At The Sign Of The Lyre

(To the Memory of Austin Dobson)

Master of the lyric inn
Where the rarer sort so long
Drew the rein, to 'scape the din
Of the cymbal and the gong,
Topers of the classic bin, -
Oporto, sherris and tokay,
Muscatel, and beaujolais -
Conning some old Book of Airs,
Lolling in their Queen Anne chairs -
Catch or glee or madrigal,
Writ for viol or virginal;
Or from France some courtly tune,
Gavotte, ridotto, rigadoon;
(Watteau and the rising moon);
Ballade, rondeau, triolet,
Villanelle or virelay,
Wistful of a statelier day,
Gallant, delicate, desire:
Where the Sign swings of the Lyre,
Garlands droop above the door,
Thou, dear Master, art no more.

Lo! about thy portals throng
Sorrowing shapes that loved thy song:
...

Richard Le Gallienne