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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TO VIRGIL by ALFRED TENNYSON

Poet Analysis

First Line: ROMAN VIRGIL, THOU THAT SINGEST
Last Line: EVER MOULDED BY THE LIPS OF MAN.
Subject(s): POETRY & POETS; VIRGIL (70-19 B.C.); WRITING & WRITERS; VERGIL;

I.
ROMAN Virgil, thou that singest
Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire,
Ilion falling, Rome arising,
wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre;
II.
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;
III.
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;
IV.
Poet of the happy Tityrus
piping underneath his beechen bowers;
Poet of the poet-satyr whom
the laughing shepherd bound with flowers;
V.
Chanter of the Pollio, glorying
in the blissful years again to be,
Summers of the snakeless meadow,
unlaborious earth and oarless sea;
VI.
Thou that seest Universal
Nature moved by Universal Mind;
Thou majestic in thy sadness
at the doubtful doom of human kind;
VII.
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;
VIII.
Now thy Forum roars no longer,
fallen every purple Caesar's dome --
Tho' thine ocean-roll of rhythm
sound for ever of Imperial Rome --
IX.
Now the Rome of slaves hath perished,
and the Rome of freemen holds her place,
I, from out the Northern Island
sundered once from all the human race,
X.
I salute thee, Mantovano,
I that loved thee since my day began,
Wielder of the stateliest measure
ever moulded by the lips of man.



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