To Alfred Tennyson
Poet! I come to touch thy lance with mine;
Not as a knight, who on the listed field
...
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream! -
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
...
Far and wide among the nations
Spread the name and fame of Kwasind;
No man dared to strive with Kwasind,
No man could compete with Kwasind.
...
When the dying flame of day
Through the chancel shot its ray,
Far the glimmering tapers shed
Faint light on the cowled head;
...
Yes, the Year is growing old,
And his eye is pale and bleared!
Death, with frosty hand and cold,
Plucks the old man by the beard,
...
From the outskirts of the town
Where of old the mile-stone stood,
Now a stranger, looking down
...
In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands
Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient,
stands.
...
Mr. Finney had a turnip,
And it grew, and it grew,
And it grew behind the barn,
And the turnip did no harm.
...
Simon Danz has come home again,
From cruising about with his buccaneers;
He has singed the beard of the King of Spain,
...
God sent his Singers upon earth
With songs of sadness and of mirth,
That they might touch the hearts of men,
And bring them back to heaven again.
...