I <br /> <br />Shakespeare and Milton--what third blazoned name <br />Shall lips of after-ages link to these? <br />His who, beside the wide encircling seas, <br />Was England's voice, her voice with one acclaim, <br />For threescore years; whose word of praise was fame, <br />Whose scorn gave pause to man's iniquities. <br /> <br />II <br /> <br />What strain was his in that Crimean war? <br />A bugle call in battle; a low breath, <br />Plaintive and sweet, above the fields of death! <br />So year by year the music rolled afar, <br />From Euxine wastes to flowery Kandahar, <br />Bearing the laurel or the cypress wreath. <br /> <br />III <br /> <br />Others shall have their little space of time, <br />Their proper niche and bust, then fade away <br />Into the darkness, poets of a day; <br />But thou, O builder of enduring rhyme, <br />Thou shalt not pass! Thy fame in every clime <br />On earth shall live where saxon speech has sway. <br /> <br />IV <br /> <br />Waft me this verse across the winter sea, <br />Through light and dark, through mist and blinding sleet, <br />O winter winds, and lay it at his feet; <br />Though the poor gift betray my poverty, <br />At his feet lay it: it may chance that he <br />Will find no gift, where reverence is, unmeet.<br /><br />Thomas Bailey Aldrich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/tennyson/
