Conclusion: Such Sweet Wayfaring?

Abstract

A. E. Housman deemed that the two most original poets of the nineteenth century were Wordsworth and Swinburne (Ricks, 1988, p. 295), and in considering an epitaph suitable for Swinburne, who had outlived his earliest talent, he quoted Wordsworth’s sonnet on the Venetian Republic:

And what if she had seen those glories fade,

Those titles vanish, and that strength decay;

Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid

When her long life hath reached its final day:

Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade

Of that which once was great, is passed away

(W. P., III, p. 112)