Excerpt from The Circle of the Year: A Sonnet-Sequence With Proem and Envoi

To Alfred, Lord Tennyson,

Poet Laureate.

Oh, if a little leaf I might but lay
Before thy feet, and it kept greenness still,
And for a moment in thy wreath might play,
Ah, that were joy like triumph over ill,
For, in the shadow, it is sweet to learn
Some gleam of light received we may return.
June 4, 1892.

SO wrote I, whilst thy honoured head was still
Erect, full-thoughted, spite the slow decay
Of body, and all powers of mind had sway
To dower the world with music that shall fill


The ear and heart of far posterity.
And now, that thou hast past in light away
From our low world, and left a track of day - .
Of gracious morning light - behind thee, I


Still dedicate unto thy memory, these, -
My faltering efforts after rest and joy -
The sweet delights that may sad hearts employ
To win a brightness and a saddened peace
From out the blank of sorrow, - still I lay
Low at thy feet my reverent wreath to-day.

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