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.