Wapentake

[ZaunköniG]

Wapentake
To Alfred Tennyson

Poet! I come to touch thy lance with mine;
  Not as a knight, who on the listed field
  Of tourney touched his adversary's shield
  In token of defiance, but in sign

Of homage to the mastery, which is thine,
  In English song; nor will I keep concealed,
  And voiceless as a rivulet frost-congealed,
  My admiration for thy verse divine.

Not of the howling dervishes of song,
  Who craze the brain with their delirious dance,
  Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart!

Therefore to thee the laurel-leaves belong,
  To thee our love and our allegiance,
  For thy allegiance to the poet's art.