Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (18091892)You ask me, why, tho ill at ease
Y
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
And languish for the purple seas.
That sober-suited Freedom chose,
The land, where girt with friends or foes
A man may speak the thing he will;
A land of just and old renown,
Where Freedom slowly broadens down
From precedent to precedent:
But by degrees to fullness wrought,
The strength of some diffusive thought
Hath time and space to work and spread.
Opinion, and induce a time
When single thought is civil crime,
And individual freedom mute;
The name of Britain trebly great—
Tho’ every channel of the State
Should fill and choke with golden sand—
Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky,
And I will see before I die
The palms and temples of the South.