Britain's myriad voices call,
Sons be welded all and all
Into one imperial whole,
One with Britain, heart and soul!
One life, one flag, one fleet, one Throne!

Thus did the poetry of Tennyson draw closer, and thus will it continue
to draw closer those sentimental ties--ties, in Burke's phrase, "light
as air, but strong as links of iron," which bind the colonies to the
mother country; and in so doing, if he did not actually initiate, he
furthered, as no other single man has furthered, the most important
movement of our time. Nor has any man of genius in the present
century--not Dickens, not Ruskin--been moved by a purer spirit of
philanthropy, or done more to show how little the qualities and actions
which dignify humanity depend, or need depend, on the accidents of
fortune. He brought poetry into touch with the discoveries of science,
and with the speculations of theology and metaphysics, and though, in
treating such subjects, his power is not, perhaps, equal to his charm,
the debt which his countrymen owe him, even intellectually, is
incalculable.


[Footnote 1: See Wordsworth's letter to Lady Beaumont, 'Prose Works',
vol. ii., p. 176.]




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