TENNYSON'S TRIBUTE.
Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson D'Eyncourt of Aldworth, the poet laureate of England. Born, 1809, at Somerby, Lincolnshire; raised to the peerage in 1883.[59] From his poem, "Columbus."
There was a glimmering of God's hand. And God
Hath more than glimmer'd on me. O my lord,
I swear to you I heard his voice between
The thunders in the black Veragua nights,
"O soul of little faith, slow to believe,
Have I not been about thee from thy birth?
Given thee the keys of the great ocean-sea?
Set thee in light till time shall be no more?
Is it I who have deceived thee or the world?
Endure! Thou hast done so well for men, that men
Cry out against thee; was it otherwise
With mine own son?"
And more than once in days
Of doubt and cloud and storm, when drowning hope
Sank all but out of sight, I heard his voice,
"Be not cast down. I lead thee by the hand,
Fear not." And I shall hear his voice again—
I know that he has led me all my life,
I am not yet too old to work His will—
His voice again.
Sir, in that flight of ages which are God's
Own voice to justify the dead—perchance
Spain, once the most chivalric race on earth,
Spain, then the mightiest, wealthiest realm on earth,
So made by me, may seek to unbury me,
To lay me in some shrine of this old Spain,
Or in that vaster Spain I leave to Spain.
Then some one standing by my grave will say,
"Behold the bones of Christopher Colòn,
"Ay, but the chains, what do they mean—the chains?"
I sorrow for that kindly child of Spain
Who then will have to answer, "These same chains
Bound these same bones back thro' the Atlantic sea,
Which he unchain'd for all the world to come."
The golden guess is morning star to the full round of truth.—Ibid.