Alfred, Lord Tennyson To Virgil                                 Roman Virgil, thou that singest           Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire, Ilion falling, Rome arising,           wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre; Landscape-lover, lord of language           more than he that sang the "Works and Days," All the chosen coin of fancy           flashing out from many a golden phrase; Thou that singest wheat and woodland,           tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd; All the charm of all the Muses           often flowering in a lonely word; Poet of the happy Tityrus           piping underneath his beechen bowers; Poet of the poet-satyr           whom the laughing shepherd bound with flowers; Chanter of the Pollio, glorying           in the blissful years again to be, Summers of the snakeless meadow,           unlaborious earth and oarless sea; Thou that seest Universal           Nature moved by Universal Mind; Thou majestic in thy sadness           at the doubtful doom of human kind; Light among the vanish'd ages;           star that gildest yet this phantom shore; Golden branch amid the shadows,           kings and realms that pass to rise no more; Now thy Forum roars no longer,           fallen every purple Caesar's dome- Tho' thine ocean-roll of rhythm           sound forever of Imperial Rome- Now the Rome of slaves hath perish'd,           and the Rome of freemen holds her place, I, from out the Northern Islands           sunder'd once from all the human race, I salute thee, Mantovano,           I that loved thee since my day began, Wielder of the stateliest measure           ever moulded by the lips of man. 1882