Wapentake

TO ALFRED TENNYSON

Poet! I come to touch thy lance with mine;
    Not as a knight, who on the listed field
    Of tourney touched his adversary's shield
    In token of defiance, but in sign
Of homage to the mastery, which is thine,
    In English song; nor will I keep concealed,
    And voiceless as a rivulet frost-congealed,
    My admiration for thy verse divine.
Not of the howling dervishes of song,
    Who craze the brain with their delirious dance,
    Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart!
Therefore to thee the laurel-leaves belong,
    To thee our love and our allegiance,
    For thy allegiance to the poet's art.