Wapentake

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    TO ALFRED TENNYSON

    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 sign
    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.