Poet!
I come to touch thy lance with mine; Not as a knight, who on the listed field Of tourney touched his adversary's shield In token of defiance, but in
Of homage to the mastery, which is thine, In English song; nor will I keep concealed, And voiceless as a rivulet frost-congealed, My admiration for thy verse divine.
Not of the howling dervishes of song, Who craze the brain with their delirious dance, Art thou,
O sweet historian of the heart!
Therefore to thee the laurel-leaves belong, To thee our love and our allegiance, For thy allegiance to the poet's art.
