| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 692. Tennyson |
| | | By Thomas Bailey Aldrich |
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| SHAKESPEARE and Milton—what third blazoned name | |
| Shall lips of after-ages link to these? | |
| His who, beside the wild encircling sea | |
| Was England’s voice, her voice with one acclaim, | |
| For threescore years; whose word of praise was fame, | 5 |
| Whose scorn gave pause to man’s iniquities. | |
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| 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, | 10 |
| From Euxine wastes to flowery Kandahar, | |
| Bearing the laurel or the cypress wreath. | |
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| Others shall have their little space of time, | |
| Their proper niche and bust, then fade away | |
| Into the darkness, poets of a day; | 15 |
| 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. | |
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| Waft me this verse across the winter sea, | |
| Through light and dark, through mist and blinding sleet, | 20 |
| 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. | |
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