In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 83

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809–1892 Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Dip down upon the northern shore

O sweet new-year delaying long;

Thou doest expectant nature wrong;

Delaying long, delay no more.

What stays thee from the clouded noons,

Thy sweetness from its proper place?

Can trouble live with April days,

Or sadness in the summer moons?

Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire,

The little speed well's darling blue,

Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew,

Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire.

O thou new-year, delaying long,

Delayest the sorrow in my blood,

That longs to burst a frozen bud

And flood a fresher throat with song.

Biography

More than any other Victorian writer, Tennyson has seemed the embodiment of his age, both to his contemporaries and to modern readers. In his own day he was said to be—with Queen Victoria and Gladstone—one of the three most famous living persons, a reputation no other poet writing in English has ever had. As official poetic spokesman for the reign of Victoria, he felt called upon to celebrate a quickly changing industrial and . . .

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