The Poetry Corner

A Voice By The Cedar Tree

By Alfred Lord Tennyson

A voice by cedar tree In the meadow under the Hall! She is singing an air that is known to me, A passionate ballad gallant and gay, A martial song like a trumpets call! Singing of men that in battle array Ready in heart and ready in hand, March with banner and bugle and fife To the death, for their native land. Maud with her exquisite face, And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky, And feet like sunny gems on an English green, Maud in the light of her youth and her grace, Singing of Death, and of Honor that cannot die, Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean, And myself so languid and base.