O lyric muse, thou didst not tune alone
The lyre that loving Orpheus smote
With subtle touch, who struck the golden note
That pierced dread Pluto's heart of stone,
And won again Eurydice his own;
Nor yet Erate's lute, nor Sappho's throat
That thrilled the ear in Grecian isles remote,
Where Homer sang, and Art had built her throne:
But thou, Euterpe, touched blind Milton's tongue,
And swept the thousand chords of Shakespeare's soul;
Woke Byron from his hours of idle dream,
And then he sang mankind a deathless song.
But thou at last didst reach the lyric goal
Of art in Tennyson's immortal theme.