L'Envoi (Poem)
Well—were it not a pleasant thing
To fall asleep with all one’s friends;
To pass with all our social ties
To silence from the paths of men;
And every hundred years to rise
And learn the world, and sleep again;
To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars,
And wake on science grown to more,
On secrets of the brain, the stars,
As wild as aught of fairy lore;
And all that else the years will show,
The Poet-forms of stronger hours,
The vast Republics that may grow,
The Federations and the Powers;
Titanic forces taking birth
In divers seasons, divers climes;
For we are Ancients of the earth,
And in the morning of the times.
—Selected From L'Envoi
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Alfred Tennyson
- Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS
- Born August 6th, 1809 and died on October, 6th 1892
- Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom