| Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893. | | | | A Book of Sonnets | | Wapentake |
| | 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, | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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. | | | | |
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