So saying, light-foot Iris pass'd away. rose round The warrior's puissant shoulders Pallas flung Her fringed ægis, and around his head And from it lighted an all-shining flame. May see, and sail to help them in the war; Written in 1877, and included in the 'Ballads' volume. NOT here the white North has thy bones; and thou, Heroic sailor-soul, Art passing on thine happier voyage now Toward no earthly pole. This volume was published in 1885, with the following dedication: TO MY GOOD FRIEND ROBERT BROWNING WHOSE GENIUS AND GENIALITY WILL BEST APPRECIATE WHAT MAY BE BEST AND MAKE MOST ALLOWANCE FOR WHAT MAY BE WORST THIS VOLUME AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED Mr. Arthur Waugh ('Alfred Lord Tennyson,' 2d ed., London, 1893), remarks: 'It is characteristic of a certain shyness in Tennyson that he never told Browning of the dedication, and it was not until the book was in the hands of the public that the latter learned the circumstance from a friend.' The poems that follow, as far as the lines' To H. R. H. Princess Beatrice,' were included in the 'Tiresias' volume. The Idyll, 'Balin and Balan,' also appeared in this volume for the first time. TO E. FITZGERALD This introduction to the poem that follows was apparently written on or about March 31, 1883, when Fitzgerald was seventy-five years of age. He was rather more than a year older than Tennyson, who was born August 6, 1809. He died June 14, 1883, before the volume containing the poem was published. OLD FITZ, who from your suburb grange, Beneath your sheltering garden-tree, Or on your head their rosy feet, As if they knew your diet spares Let down to Peter at his prayers; And seem'd at first 'a thing enskied,' To float above the ways of men, And set me climbing icy capes And glaciers, over which there roll'd To meet me long-arm'd vines with grapes Which cast it, that large infidel Full-handed plaudits from our best In modern letters, and from two, Old friends outvaluing all the rest, Two voices heard on earth no more; But we old friends are still alive, And I am nearing seventy-four, While you have touch'd at seventy-five, And so I send a birthday line Of greeting; and my son, who dipt In some forgotten book of mine With sallow scraps of manuscript, And dating many a year ago, Has hit on this, which you will take, My Fitz, and welcome, as I know, Less for its own than for the sake Of one recalling gracious times, When, in our younger London days, You found some merit in my rhymes, And I more pleasure in your praise. This useless hand! I would that I were gather'd to my rest, Here trampled by the populace underfoot, There crown'd with worship-and these eyes will find The men I knew, and watch the chariot whirl About the goal again, and hunters race 169 Again for glory, while the golden lyre Of those who mix all odor to the Gods |