Alfred Lord Tennyson, born 6 August 1809

   Tennyson followed William Wordsworth as Poet Laureate, in 1850. Daunting not only because of his predecessor, the role of the Laureateship was changing and Tennyson had not been the first choice.

    When I taught English IV- British Literature- I always felt we cheated the post-Romantic 19th Century. We leap-frogged over them from the romantics to Eliot and Auden, at least in my class. Partially that was due to it being the end of the semester, and in the Spring, graduation neared.

    The Idylls of the King esepcially was ignored, mainly due to its length. But Tennyson imbues the narative iambic pentameter prose with majesty. I caught some of that in graduate school. Right now Arthur's final words speak clearly to me amidst the backdrop of a confusing election campaign in the USa and other events around the world:

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/tennyson/tennybio.html  - a brief biography of the poet

And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge:
 "The old order changeth, yielding place to new,             240
 And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
 Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
 I have lived my life, and that which I have done
 May He within Himself make pure! but thou,
 If thou shouldst never see my face again,
 Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
 Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
 Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
 For what are men better than sheep or goats                 250
 That nourish a blind life within the brain,
 If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
 Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

https://library.sc.edu/spcoll/britlit/tenn/morte.html  the entire text