To The Rev. F.D. Maurice

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

　　

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January, 1854 Come, when no graver cares employ, Godfather, come and see your boy: Your presence will be sun in winter, Making the little one leap for joy. For, being of that honest few, Who give the Fiend himself his due, Should eighty-thousand college-councils Thunder ‘Anathema,’ friend, at you; Should all our churchmen foam in spite At you, so careful of the right, Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome (Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight; Where, far from noise and smoke of town, I watch the twilight falling brown All round a careless-order’d garden Close to the ridge of a noble down. You’ll have no scandal while you dine, But honest talk and wholesome wine, And only hear the magpie gossip Garrulous under a roof of pine: For groves of pine on either hand, To break the blast of winter, stand; And further on, the hoary Channel Tumbles a billow on chalk and sand; Where, if below the milky steep Some ship of battle slowly creep, And on thro’ zones of light and shadow Glimmer away to the lonely deep, We might discuss the Northern sin Which made a selfish war begin; Dispute the claims, arrange the chances; Emperor, Ottoman, which shall win: Or whether war’s avenging rod Shall lash all Europe into blood; Till you should turn to dearer matters, Dear to the man that is dear to God; How best to help the slender store, How mend the dwellings, of the poor; How gain in life, as life advances, Valour and charity more and more. Come, Maurice, come: the lawn as yet Is hoar with rime, or spongy-wet; But when the wreath of March has blossom’d, Crocus, anemone, violet, Or later, pay one visit here, For those are few we hold as dear; Nor pay but one, but come for many, Many and many a happy year.

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