Originally published in the _Examiner_ for 24th March, 1849; then in the sixth edition of the poems, 1850, with the second part of the title and the alterations noted. When reprinted in 1851 one more slight alteration was made. It has not been altered since. The work referred to was Moncton Milne’s (afterwards Lord Houghton) _Letters and Literary Remains of Keats_ published in 1848, and the person to whom the poem may have been addressed was Tennyson’s brother Charles, afterwards Charles Tennyson Turner, to the facts of whose life and to whose character it would exactly apply. See Napier,_Homes and Haunts of Tennyson_, 48-50. But Sir Franklin Lushington tells me that it was most probably addressed to some imaginary person, as neither he nor such of Tennyson’s surviving friends as he kindly consulted for me are able to identify the person. You might have won the Poet’s name If such be worth the winning now, And gain’d a laurel for your brow Of sounder leaf than I can claim; But you have made the wiser choice, A life that moves to gracious ends Thro’ troops of unrecording friends, A deedful life, a silent voice: And you have miss’d the irreverent doom Of those that wear the Poet’s crown: Hereafter, neither knave nor clown Shall hold their orgies at your tomb. For now the Poet cannot die Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry: “Proclaim the faults he would not show: Break lock and seal: betray the trust: Keep nothing sacred: ’tis but just The many-headed beast should know”. Ah, shameless! for he did but sing. A song that pleased us from its worth; No public life was his on earth, No blazon’d statesman he, nor king. He gave the people of his best: His worst he kept, his best he gave. My Shakespeare’s curse on[1] clown and knave Who will not let his ashes rest! Who make it seem more sweet[2] to be The little life of bank and brier, The bird that pipes his lone desire And dies unheard within his tree, Than he that warbles long and loud And drops at Glory’s temple-gates, For whom the carrion vulture waits To tear his heart before the crowd! [1] In Examiner and in 1850. My curse upon the. [2] In Examiner. Sweeter seem. For the sentiment _cf._ Goethe:— Ich singe, wie der Vogel singt Der in den Zweigen wohnet; Das Lied das aus dem Seele dringt Ist Lohn, der reichlich lohnet. (_Der Sänger._) To E. L. on his travels in Greece. This was first printed in 1853. It has not been altered since. The poem was addressed to Edward Lear, the landscape painter, and refers to his travels. Illyrian woodlands, echoing falls Of water, sheets of summer glass, The long divine Peneian pass,[1] The vast Akrokeraunian walls,[2] Tomohrit,[3] Athos, all things fair, With such a pencil, such a pen, You shadow forth to distant men, I read and felt that I was there: