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British Library @britishlibrary.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Today's excuse to read a little poetry: it's Lord Alfred Tennyson's birthday 🎈 We're celebrating with an extract of The Palace of Art - which of his poems is your favourite?

A photograph of Lord Alfred Tennyson. He is a white man, with a long beard that appears to be graying at the end. He is wearing a suit and is sat in a chair reading a book.

A page from a book fo poems by Lord Alfred Tennyson. This shows a black and sepia toned illustration of inside a castle or fortress, focusing particularly on a woman playing an organ on a wooden bridge. She is leaning back and being kissed on the forehead by a man in a large cloak. In the foreground, you can see an armed soldier with a helmet and spear eating an apple, and to his right is a seagull. In the background, you can see soldiers defending the castle from the turets, loading canons, and lots of ships out at sea. Text below the illustration reads: The Palace of Art (which is the title of the poem), and the first stanza: 'I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house, Wherein at ease for aye to dwell. I said, "O Soul, make merry and carouse, Dear soul, for all is well."

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British Library @britishlibrary.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

✏ Poems by Alfred Tennyson, with illustrations by Thomas Creswick, John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, William Mulready, John Callcott Horsley, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Clarkson Stanfield, and Daniel Maclise. Shelfmark: 11647.e.59

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Matthew Rowlinson @matthewrowlinson.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Forgive the pedantry, but it’s correctly “Alfred, Lord Tennyson.” Lord Alfred Tennyson would be the younger son of a peer, like Lord Alfred Douglas.

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Mandy Patrish @mandypatrish.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Tennyson's poem The Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millenial growth and height
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There he hath lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

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Bill Hall @artboy.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

As it's Lord Alfred Tennyson's birthday, here's his poignant "Crossing the Bar", set to music by Rani Arbo, and sung by @thelongestjohns.bsky.social youtu.be/pck6AplSqao?...

youtu.be

CROSSING THE BAR | THE LONGEST JOHNS

YouTube video by The Longest Johns

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