Tennyson

The Sisters' Tragedy

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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 pass! Thy fame in every clime

      On earth shall live where Saxon speech has
sway.

IV

Waft me this verse across the winter sea,
   
  Through light and dark, through mist and blinding sleet,

      O winter winds, and lay it at his feet;

Though the poor gift betray my poverty,
At his feet lay it: it
may chance that he
      Will find no gift, where
reverence is, unmeet.