Versos English Baron Tennyson Alfred Tennyson Xl

English poem

Xl

by

Listen in the reader

=Cambridge=

[This poem is written in pencil on the fly-leaf of a copy of Poems 1833 in the Dyce Collection in South Kensington Museum. Reprinted with many alterations in Life, vol. I, p. 67.]

Therefore your halls, your ancient colleges, Your portals statued with old kings and queens, Your bridges and your busted libraries, Wax-lighted chapels and rich carved screens, Your doctors and your proctors and your deans Shall not avail you when the day-beam sports New-risen o'er awakened Albion--No, Nor yet your solemn organ-pipes that blow Melodious thunders through your vacant courts At morn and even; for your manner sorts Not with this age, nor with the thoughts that roll, Because the words of little children preach Against you,--ye that did profess to teach And have taught nothing, feeding on the soul.