To Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Young father-poet! much in you I praise Adventure high, romantic, vehement, All with inviolate honour sealed and blent To the axe-edge that cleft your soldier bays; Your friendships too, your follies, whims, and frays; And most, that verse of strict imperious bent Heard sweetly as from some old harper's tent, And clanging in the listener's brain for days. At Framlingham to-night if there should be No guest beyond a sea-born wind that sighs, No guard save moonlight's crossed and trailing spears, And I, your pilgrim, call you, Oh, let me In at the gate! and smile into the eyes That sought you, Surrey, down three hundred years.