"We are but Commoners, both you and I," Said Gladstone; "no adornment to our names, No sounding titles; simply Mister This And Mister That. But yet, the other day, You read your verse to Emperors and Kings; Princesses smiled upon you. You were great As they, except in title. It were well The distance lessened somewhat; Poet, you, The prince of all the poets of our time, Be something more, be noble, be a lord." Then Alfred sate him down, his good grey hairs Blown o'er his shoulders by the summer wind, His eyes all dreamy; and he hummed a song, Like, and yet unlike, that which Enid sang.[1] "Turn, Gladstone, turn thy followers into lords, Turn those who wealth has gathered into hoards; Turn those, and whom thou wilt, but turn not me. Leave, Gladstone, leave the name I always bore, One that, mayhap, may live for evermore; 'Tis mine alone, and mine shall always be. Turn into lords the owners of broad lands, Turn him who in the path of progress stands, And he who doeth service to the State. Leave the name that all the people know. A prouder title than thou canst bestow, Made by myself, and not by station, great." Yet, notwithstanding what he murmured then, The thought dwelt in his heart; and many a day Thereafter, as he sat at Haslemere, Revolving and resolving, till his mind Could scarce distinguish his resolves from doubts, He muttered, "Ah! and I might be a lord!" And so the thought grew on him, and brake down, And overcame him; and the grand old name Which the world knows, and reverences, and loves, Seemed plain and bare and niggard, far too poor For him who sang of Arthur and his knights, And Camelot, and that strange, haunted mere. And one who knew the name, and honour'd it, Went to him, pleaded, then spake hotly thus:-- "Doubtest thou here so long?" Art thou the one Whose tongue grew bitter only at the sound Of titles, and whose satire never leaped Forth from its hiding-place but when some claim Of place and privilege provoked thy wrath? Wherever travels our bold English speech-- Across the broad Atlantic, 'mid the sands Of scorching Africa, or in the bush Of the young, strong, far-off Antipodes-- Thy name is greater, more familiar, more In all men's mouths than that of any lord.