  Weep, England, weep! if thou hast tears to shed— Thy master-son of song has passed away; The Arthur of thy poets far has sped, As the long-toiling light fades out of day Into an unseen land; no later lay, To cheer thy heart and make thy soul more strong, Shall sound within thy walls of sea-girt gray, From the rare voice of him who gave so long The noblest numbers of new English song. Around the world the echoes of that song Swiftly rebound, all English hearts to fill, And o’er each peak of empire speed along In roseate splendour, as the sudden thrill Of sunrise tips with beauty each new hill; From east and west the glory of his fame Rolls back to Albion’s shores, and ever will— For east and west can show no poet’s name More true and pure, more free from blot and shame. He died in dear old England—in the land Where Chaucer first sang tales of jovial cheer; Where Spenser chanted forth his pÆans grand, And Shakespeare left a word supreme and clear; Where Milton bade the epic reappear, And Wordsworth, later, gained a deathless name; With these great five, this memorable year Has yielded Tennyson, for future fame The sixth true English poet to acclaim. The moon streamed through the lattice where he lay, In that last struggle of the living powers, And round his brow her glory ’gan to play, As when he wooed her in sweet English bowers, ’Midst silent birds and open-hearted flowers, Till scenes of old-time beauty through his brain Before him passed; thus kindly death endowers The last sad moments, lulling them from pain, And memory brings her sweetest stores again. |
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