Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)

Milton

(Alcaics)

O MIGHTY-MOUTH’D inventor of harmonies,

O skill’d to sing of Time or Eternity,

God-gifted organ-voice of England,

Milton, a name to resound for ages;

Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,

Starr’d from Jehovah’s gorgeous armouries,

Tower, as the deep-domed empyrëan

Rings to the roar of an angel onset—

Me rather all that bowery loneliness,

The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring,

And bloom profuse and cedar arches

Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean,

Where some refulgent sunset of India

Streams o’er a rich ambrosial ocean isle,

And crimson-hued the stately palm-woods

Whisper in odorous heights of even.