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