'Mine be the power which ever to its sway
Will win the wise at once—
We, for once, are wise, and he has won us—
'Will win the wise at once; and by degrees
May into uncongenial spirits flow,
Even as the great gulphstream of Florida
Floats far away into the Northern seas
The lavish growths of southern Mexico!'—p. 1.
And so concludes the sonnet.
The next piece is a kind of testamentary paper, addressed 'To ——,' a friend, we presume, containing his wishes as to what his friend should do for him when he (the poet) shall be dead—not, as we shall see, that he quite thinks that such a poet can die outright.
'Shake hands, my friend, across the brink
Of that deep grave to which I go.
Shake hands once more; I cannot sink
So far—far down, but I shall know
Thy voice, and answer from below!'
Horace said 'non omnis moriar,' meaning that his fame should survive—Mr. Tennyson is still more vivacious, 'non omnino moriar,'—'I will not die at all; my body shall be as immortal as my verse, and however low I may go, I warrant you I shall keep all my wits about me,—therefore'
'When, in the darkness over me,
The four-handed mole shall scrape,
Plant thou no dusky cypress tree,
Nor wreath thy cap with doleful crape,
But pledge me in the flowing grape.'
Observe how all ages become present to the mind of a great poet; and admire how naturally he combines the funeral cypress of classical antiquity with the crape hat-band of the modern undertaker.
He proceeds:—