Littell's Living Age/Volume 134/Issue 1726/To Victor Hugo

by Alfred Tennyson

For works with similar titles, see To Victor Hugo.

TO VICTOR HUGO.

Victor in poesy, Victor in romance,
Cloud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears,
French of the French, and lord of human tears;
Child-lover; bard whose fame-lit laurels glance
Darkening the wreaths of all that would advance,
Beyond our strait, their claim to be thy peers;
Weird Titan by thy winter weight of years
As yet unbroken, stormy voice of France!
Who dost not love our England — so they say;
I know not — England, France, all man to be
Will make one people ere man’s race be run:
And I, desiring that diviner day,
Yield thee full thanks for thy full courtesy
To younger England in the boy my son.

Nineteenth Century.Alfred Tennyson