England and Yesterday — To Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

TO HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY.

Young father-poet!

much in you I praise Adventure high, romantic, vehement, All with inviolate honour sealed and blent, To the axe-edge that cleft your soldier bays: Your friendships too, your follies, whims, and frays;

And, most, your verse, with strict imperious bent, Heard sweetly as from some old harper’s tent, And surging in the listener’s brain for days.

At Framlingham to-night, if there should be No guest, beyond a sea-born wind that sighs, No guard, save moonlight’s crossed and trailing spears, And I, your pilgrim, call you, O let me In at the gate!

and smile into the eyes That sought you, Surrey, down three hundred years.