{
 "id": "alfred-lord-tennyson/to-the-queen",
 "title": "To the Queen",
 "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": 14,
 "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": "to-the-queen.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": 66,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "O loyal to the royal in thyself,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And loyal to thy land, as this to thee⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bear witness, that rememberable day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When, pale as yet, and fever-worn, the Prince",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who scarce had plucked his flickering life again",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From halfway down the shadow of the grave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Past with thee through thy people and their love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And London rolled one tide of joy through all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her trebled millions, and loud leagues of man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And welcome! witness, too, the silent cry,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The prayer of many a race and creed, and clime⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thunderless lightnings striking under sea",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From sunset and sunrise of all thy realm,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that true North, whereof we lately heard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A strain to shame us “keep you to yourselves;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So loyal is too costly! friends⁠—your love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is but a burthen: loose the bond, and go.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is this the tone of empire? here the faith",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That made us rulers? this, indeed, her voice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And meaning, whom the roar of Hougoumont",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Left mightiest of all peoples under heaven?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What shock has fooled her since, that she should speak",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So feebly? wealthier⁠—wealthier⁠—hour by hour!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The voice of Britain, or a sinking land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some third-rate isle half-lost among her seas?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There rang her voice, when the full city pealed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thee and thy Prince! The loyal to their crown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are loyal to their own far sons, who love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our ocean-empire with her boundless homes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For ever-broadening England, and her throne",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In our vast Orient, and one isle, one isle,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That knows not her own greatness: if she knows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And dreads it we are fallen.⁠—But thou, my Queen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not for itself, but through thy living love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For one to whom I made it o’er his grave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sacred, accept this old imperfect tale,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ideal manhood closed in real man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rather than that gray king, whose name, a ghost,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or him",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Geoffrey’s book, or him of Malleor’s, one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Touched by the adulterous finger of a time",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That hovered between war and wantonness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And crownings and dethronements: take withal",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy poet’s blessing, and his trust that Heaven",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will blow the tempest in the distance back",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From thine and ours: for some are scared, who mark,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or wisely or unwisely, signs of storm,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Waverings of every vane with every wind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wordy trucklings to the transient hour,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And fierce or careless looseners of the faith,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Softness breeding scorn of simple life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or Cowardice, the child of lust for gold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or Labour, with a groan and not a voice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or Art with poisonous honey stolen from France,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that which knows, but careful for itself,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that which knows not, ruling that which knows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To its own harm: the goal of this great world",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lies beyond sight: yet⁠—if our slowly-grown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And crowned Republic’s crowning common-sense,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That saved her many times, not fail⁠—their fears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are morning shadows huger than the shapes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That cast them, not those gloomier which forego",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The darkness of that battle in the West,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where all of high and holy dies away.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}