of ordered impulse mariners await

Did you guys know that Benjamin Disraeli wrote a sonnet about his enormous crush on Wellington? I did not know this! Although to be fair to Disraeli, most of Britain had a pretty enormous crush on Wellington for about fifty years. Wellington was also much too old for Disraeli, and anyway I ship Disraeli and Gladstone. Yes, yes I do.

Not only that thy puissant arm could bind
The tyrant of a world; and, conquering Fate,
Enfranchise Europe, do I deem thee great;
But that in all thy actions I do find
Exact propriety: no gusts of mind
Fitful and wild, but that continuous state
Of ordered impulse mariners await
In some benignant and enriching wind,--
The breath ordained of Nature. Thy calm mien
Recalls old Rome, as much as thy high deed;
Duty thine only idol, and serene
When all are troubled; in the utmost need
Prescient; thy country's servant ever seen,
Yet sovereign of thyself, whate'er may speed.

~Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-1881), Prime Minister 1868 and 1874-1880, "Wellington", 1840.

Appearing in The Stowe Catalogues, priced and annotated by Henry Rumsey Forster in 1848, p. xlii; British Museum. No title appears on the sonnet. According to Mr. Forster: 'Mr. Disraeli, M.P., while a guest at Stowe, in 1840, composed the following beautiful lines in allusion to [a silver statuette by Cotterell]; they were written out at the time, and subsequently always placed on the table with the statuette.' (Bibliography to the 1904 Gosse and Arnot edition of Disraeli's Endymion, Vol. 2). God bless Google Books.

That concludes your random Victorian trivia for the day. Please tip your waitress.