To W.C. Macready

1851

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 pantomine,
And those gilt gauds men-children swarm to see.
Farewell, Macready, moral, grave, sublime;
Our Shakespeares bland and universal eye
Dwells pleased, through twice a hundred years, on thee.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Lord Tennyson was a renowned British poet of the Victorian era, born on August 6, 1809, in Somersby, Lincolnshire. He is best known for his works like 'In Memoriam A.H.H.', 'The Charge of the Light Brigade', and 'Ulysses'. As one of the most popular poets of his time, he was appointed Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland in 1850. Tennyson's poetry is characterized by its rich imagery, deep emotion, and classical themes. He passed away on October 6, 1892.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Sir Galahad

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

Prefatory Poem To My Brothers Sonnets

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

To H.R.H. Princess Beatrice

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

Sir Launcelot And Queen Guinevere

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

English

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Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

To The Marquis Of Dufferin And Ava

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 honouring 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 ow...

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Cleveland's Song

Farewell! Farewell! the voice you hear,
Has left its last soft tone with you,
Its next must join the seaward cheer,
And shout among the shouting crew.

The accents which I scarce could form
Beneath your frown's controlling check,
Must give the word, above the storm,
To cut the mast, and clear the wreck.

The timid eye I dared not raise,
The hand, that shook when press'd to thine,
Must point the guns upon the chase,
Must bid the deadly cutlass shine.

To all I love, or hope, or fear,
Honour, or own, a long adieu!
To all that life has soft and dear,
Farewell! save memory of you!

Walter Scott

After The Curfew

The Play is over. While the light
Yet lingers in the darkening hall,
I come to say a last Good-night
Before the final Exeunt all.

We gathered once, a joyous throng:
The jovial toasts went gayly round;
With jest, and laugh, and shout, and song,
We made the floors and walls resound.

We come with feeble steps and slow,
A little band of four or five,
Left from the wrecks of long ago,
Still pleased to find ourselves alive.

Alive! How living, too, are they
Whose memories it is ours to share!
Spread the long table's full array, -
There sits a ghost in every chair!

One breathing form no more, alas!
Amid our slender group we see;
With him we still remained "The Class," -
Without his presence what are we?

The hand...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Tennyson

I

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 threescore years; whose word of praise was fame,
Whose scorn gave pause to man's iniquities.


II

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.


III

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 ...

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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

Edward Gray

Sweet Emma Moreland of yonder town
Met me walking on yonder way;
And have you lost your heart? she said;
And are you married yet, Edward Gray?

Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me;
Bitterly weeping I turnd away:
Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more
Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.

Ellen Adair she loved me well,
Against her fathers and mothers will;
To-day I sat for an hour and wept
By Ellens grave, on the windy hill.

Shy she was, and I thought her cold,
Thought her proud, and fled over the sea;
Filld I was with folly and spite,
When Ellen Adair was dying for me.

Cruel, cruel the words I said!
Cruelly came they back to-day:
Youre too slight and fickle, I said,
To trouble the heart of Edward Gray.

T...

Alfred Lord Tennyson