To Alfred Tennyson

They told me in their shadowy phrase,
Caught from a tale gone by,
That Arthur, King of Cornish praise,
Died not, and would not die !

Dreams had they, that in fairy bowers,
Their living warrior lies ;
Or wears a garland of the flowers
That grow in Paradise !

I read the Rune with deeper ken,
And thus the myth I trace : —
A bard should rise, mid future men,
The mightiest of his race.

He would great Arthur's deeds rehearse,
On grey Dundagel's shore ;
And so, the King, in laurelled verse,
Shall live, and die no more !