Summary and Analysis
Dedication
Summary
These Idylls are consecrated in tears and are dedicated to the memory of one who loved them as if he had seen his own image in them. He was a man who seemed in all his virtues and fine qualities to be none other than Arthur's ideal knight. Now he is gone, and England prays that his sons will be as noble as he was and will be worthy of their father, Albert the Good. The queen (Queen Victoria, whose beloved husband, Prince-Consort Albert, died in 1861) must reign alone, in splendor and in solitude, for he is gone, but she is royal and will endure. In his closing lines to the queen, the poet writes:
. . . May all love,
His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow thee,
The love of all thy sons encompass thee,
The love of all thy daughters cherish thee,
The love of all thy people comfort thee,
Till God's love set thee at his side again!