Alfred Tennyson (Lord)
(August 6 1809 – October 6 1892) was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom after William Wordsworth and is one of the most popular English poets.
At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a fluttered bird, came flying from far away:
"Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!"
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: "'Fore God I am no coward;
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,
And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?"
There is no joy but calm!
Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the rose is blown.
Perfectly beautiful: let it be granted her: where is the fault?
All that I saw (for her eyes were downcast, not to be seen)
Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null,
Dead perfection, no more.
One still strong man in a blatant land.
So dear a life your arms enfold,
Whose crying is a cry for gold.
Her manners had not that repose
Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.
Mastering the lawless science of our law,—
That codeless myriad of precedent,
That wilderness of single instances.
Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right —
The leaves upon her falling light —
Thro' the noises of the night,
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.
That tower of strength
Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew.
Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths.
Unalterably and pesteringly fond.
Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace!
That jewelled mass of millinery,
That oiled and curled Assyrian Bull.
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The golden guess
Is morning-star to the full round of truth.
A mastiff dog
May love a puppy cur for no more reason
Than that the twain have been tied up together.
For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise,
Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt,
And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith!
Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still.