Tennyson, “the most Virgilian of modern poets,” gives the following tribute, written at the request of the Mantuans for the nineteenth centenary of Virgil’s death:—
“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 shepherds bound with flowers,