Alfred, Lord Tennyson - The Epic lyrics

At Francis Allen's on the Christmas-eve, ­ The game of forfeits done ­ the girls all kiss'd Beneath the sacred bush and past away ­ The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall, The host, and I sat round the wa**ail-bowl, Then half-way ebb'd: and there we held a talk, How all the old honour had from Christmas gone, Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out With cutting eights that day upon the pond, Where, three times slipping from the outer edge, I bump'd the ice into three several stars, Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard The parson taking wide and wider sweeps, Now harping on the church-commissioners, Now hawking at Geology and schism; Until I woke, and found him settled down Upon the general decay of faith Right thro' the world, "at home was little left, And none abroad: there was no anchor, none, To hold by". Francis, laughing, clapt his hand On Everard's shoulder, with "I hold by him". "And I," quoth Everard, "by the wa**ail-bowl." "Why, yes," I said, "we knew your gift that way At college: but another which you had, I mean of verse (for so we held it then), What came of that?" "You know," said Frank, "he burnt His epic, his King Arthur, some twelve books " ­ And then to me demanding why? "Oh, sir, He thought that nothing new was said, or else Something so said 'twas nothing ­ that a truth Looks freshest in the fashion of the day: God knows: he has a mint of reasons: ask. It pleased me well enough." "Nay, nay," said Hall, "Why take the style of those heroic times? For nature brings not back the Mastodon, Nor we those times; and why should any man Remodel models? these twelve books of mine Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing-worth, Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt." "But I," Said Francis, "pick'd the eleventh from this hearth, And have it: keep a thing its use will come. I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes." He laugh'd, and I, though sleepy, like a horse That hears the corn-bin open, prick'd my ears; For I remember'd Everard's college fame When we were Freshmen: then at my request He brought it; and the poet little urged, But with some prelude of disparagement, Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes, Deep-chested music, and to this result.