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Home  »  Every Day in the Year A Poetical Epitome of the World’s History  »  A Welcome to the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh

James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.

January 23

A Welcome to the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)

(Married Jan. 23, 1874)

THE SON of him with whom we strove for power—

Whose will is lord thro’ all his world-domain—

Who made the serf a man, and burst his chain—

Has given our Prince his own Imperial Flower,

Alexandrovna.

And welcome, Russian flower, a people’s pride,

To Britain, when her flowers begin to blow!

From love to love, from home to home you go,

From mother unto mother, stately bride,

Marie-Alexandrovna.

The golden news along the steppes is blown,

And at thy name the Tartar tents are stirred:

Elburz and all the Caucasus have heard;

And all the sultry palms of India known,

Alexandrovna.

The voice of our universal sea,

On capes of Afric as on cliffs of Kent,

The Maoris and that Isle of Continent,

And loyal pines of Canada murmur thee,

Marie-Alexandrovna.

Fair empires branching, both, in lusty life!—

Yet Harold’s England fell to Norman swords:

Yet thine own land has bow’d to Tartar hordes

Since English Harold gave its throne a wife,

Alexandrovna.

For thrones and peoples are as waifs that swing,

And float or fall, in endless ebb and flow;

But who love best have best the grace to know

That Love by right divine is deathless king,

Marie-Alexandrovna!

And Love has led thee to the stranger land,

Where men are bold and strongly say their say:—

See, empire upon empire smiles to-day,

As thou with thy young lover hand in hand,

Alexandrovna!

So now thy fuller life is in the West,

Whose hand at home was gracious to thy poor:

Thy name was blest within the narrow door;

Here, also, Marie, shall thy name be blest,

Marie-Alexandrovna!

Shall fears and jealous hatreds flame again?

Or at thy coming, Princess, everywhere,

The blue heaven break, and some diviner air

Breathe thro’ the world and change the hearts of men,

Alexandrovna?

But hearts that change not, love that cannot cease,

And peace be yours, the peace of soul in soul!

And howsoever this wide world may roll,

Between your peoples truth and manful peace,

Alfred—Alexandrovna!