{
 "id": "alfred-lord-tennyson/dedication",
 "title": "Dedication",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Alfred, Lord Tennyson",
 "poet_slug": "alfred-lord-tennyson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Idylls of the King",
 "book_slug": "idylls-of-the-king",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 1,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1885,
  "venue": "Idylls of the King (1885)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/idyllsofking00tenn",
   "https://github.com/standardebooks/alfred-lord-tennyson_idylls-of-the-king",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/610"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/alfred-lord-tennyson_idylls-of-the-king",
  "file": "dedication.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/610",
   "https://archive.org/details/idyllsofking00tenn",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101901267"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 55,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "These to His Memory⁠—since he held them dear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perchance as finding there unconsciously",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some image of himself⁠—I dedicate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I dedicate, I consecrate with tears⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These Idylls.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And indeed He seems to me",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Scarce other than my king’s ideal knight,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "“Who reverenced his conscience as his king;",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose glory was, redressing human wrong;",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Who spake no slander, no, nor listened to it;",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Who loved one only and who clave to her⁠—”",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Her⁠—over all whose realms to their last isle,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Commingled with the gloom of imminent war,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "The shadow of His loss drew like eclipse,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Darkening the world. We have lost him: he is gone:",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "We know him now: all narrow jealousies",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Are silent; and we see him as he moved,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "How modest, kindly, all-accomplished, wise,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "With what sublime repression of himself,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "And in what limits, and how tenderly;",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Not swaying to this faction or to that;",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Not making his high place the lawless perch",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Of winged ambitions, nor a vantage-ground",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "For pleasure; but through all this tract of years",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Wearing the white flower of a blameless life,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Before a thousand peering littlenesses,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "In that fierce light which beats upon a throne,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "And blackens every blot: for where is he,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Who dares foreshadow for an only son",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "A lovelier life, a more unstained, than his?",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Or how should England dreaming of his sons",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Hope more for these than some inheritance",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou noble Father of her Kings to be,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Laborious for her people and her poor⁠—",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Voice in the rich dawn of an ampler day⁠—",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Far-sighted summoner of War and Waste",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace⁠—",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Sweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Dear to thy land and ours, a Prince indeed,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Beyond all titles, and a household name,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Hereafter, through all times, Albert the Good.",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Break not, O woman’s-heart, but still endure;",
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   },
   {
    "text": "Break not, for thou art Royal, but endure,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Remembering all the beauty of that star",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which shone so close beside Thee that ye made",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One light together, but has past and leaves",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Crown a lonely splendour.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "May all love,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "His love, unseen but felt, o’ershadow Thee,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "The love of all Thy daughters cherish Thee,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "The love of all Thy people comfort Thee,",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   },
   {
    "text": "Till God’s love set Thee at his side again!",
    "indent": 0,
    "align": "right"
   }
  ]
 ]
}