| James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902. | | | | December 14 | | The Prince Consort | | By Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) |
| | | | From the Dedication to the “Idylls of the King” |
| Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. He died Dec. 14, 1861. |
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WE know him now; all narrow jealousies | |
| Are silent; and we see him as he moved, | |
| How modest, kindly, all-accomplish’d, wise, | |
| With what sublime repression of himself, | |
| And in what limits, and how tenderly; | 5 |
| Not swaying to this faction or to that; | |
| Not making his high place the lawless perch | |
| Of wing’d ambitions, nor a vantage-ground | |
| For pleasure; but thro’ all this tract of years | |
| Wearing the white flower of a blameless life, | 10 |
| Before a thousand peering littlenesses, | |
| In that fierce light which beats upon a throne, | |
| And blackens every blot: for where is he, | |
| Who dares foreshadow for an only son | |
| A lovelier life, a more unstain’d, than his? | 15 |
| Or how should England dreaming of his sons | |
| Hope more for these than some inheritance | |
| Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine, | |
| Thou noble Father of her Kings to be, | |
| Laborious for her people and her poor— | 20 |
| Voice in the rich dawn of an ampler day— | |
| Far-sighted summoner of War and Waste | |
| To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace— | |
| Sweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam | |
| Of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art, | 25 |
| Dear to thy land and ours, a Prince indeed, | |
| Beyond all titles, and a household name, | |
| Hereafter, thro’ all times, Albert the Good. | | | |
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