To W.C. Macready

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

　　

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1851 Farewell, Macready, since to-night we part; Full-handed thunders often have confessed Thy power, well-used to move the public breast. We thank thee with our voice, and from the heart. Farewell, Macready, since this night we part, Go, take thine honors home; rank with the best, Garrick and statelier Kemble, and the rest Who made a nation purer through their art. Thine is it that our drama did not die, Nor flicker down to brainless pantomine, And those gilt gauds men-children swarm to see. Farewell, Macready, moral, grave, sublime; Our Shakespeare’s bland and universal eye Dwells pleased, through twice a hundred years, on thee.

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