To the Memory of William Shakespeare 3417
Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread, And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on, Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. He was not of an age, but for all time! And all the Muses still were in their prime, When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm! Nature herself was proud of his designs And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines! Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit, As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit. The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes, Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please; But antiquated and deserted lie,
As they were not of Nature's family. Yet must I not give Nature all; thy Art My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part. For though the poet's matter nature be, His art doth give the fashion; and, that he Who casts to write a living line, must sweat, (Such as thine are) and strike the second heat Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same (And himself with it) that he thinks to frame, Or, for the laurel, he may gain a scorn;
For a good poet's made, as well as born.
And such wert thou! Look how the father's face Lives in his issue, even so the race
Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines In his well-turnèd, and true-filèd lines;
In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
As brandished at the eyes of ignorance. Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames, That so did take Eliza, and our James!
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere Advanced, and made a constellation there! Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage
Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage,
Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night, And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.
ON THE PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE PREFIXED TO THE FIRST FOLIO EDITION, 1623
THIS figure, that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut; Wherein the Graver had a strife
With Nature to outdo the life:
O, could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he hath hit
His face; the Print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass. But since he cannot, Reader, look
Not at his picture, but his book.
TO SHAKESPEARE
THE Soul of man is larger than the sky, Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark Of the unfathomed center. Like that ark, Which in its sacred hold uplifted high, O'er the drowned hills, the human family, And stock reserved of every living kind, So, in the compass of the single mind, The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie,
That make all worlds. Great poet, 'twas thy art To know thyself, and in thyself to be Whate'er love, hate, ambition, destiny, Or the firm, fatal purpose of the heart
Can make of Man. Yet thou wert still the same, Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame.
Hartley Coleridge [1796-1849]
An Epitaph on W. Shakespeare 3419
OTHERS abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask-Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill, Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty, Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, Spares but the cloudy border of his base To the foiled searching of mortality;
And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, Self-schooled, self-scanned, self-honored, self-secure, Didst tread on earth unguessed at.-Better so! All pains the immortal spirit must endure, All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow, Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.
Matthew Arnold [1822-1888]
AN EPITAPH ON THE ADMIRABLE DRAMATIC POET, W. SHAKESPEARE
WHAT needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones The labor of an age in pilèd stones?
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid
Under a star-ypointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a livelong monument.
For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavoring art, Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book Those Delphic lines with deep impression took, Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving, Dost make us marble with too much conceiving; And so sepulchered in such pomp dost lie, That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
THE waves about Iona dirge,
The wild winds trumpet over Skye; Shrill around Arran's cliff-bound verge The gray gulls cry.
Spring wraps its transient scarf of green, Its heathery robe, round slope and scar; And night, the scudding wrack between, Lights its lone star.
But you who loved these outland isles, Their gleams, their glooms, their mysteries, Their eldritch lures, their druid wiles, Their tragic seas,
Will heed no more, in mortal guise, The potent witchery of their call, If dawn be regnant in the skies, Or evenfall.
Yet, though where suns Sicilian beam The loving earth enfolds your form, I can but deem these coasts of dream And hovering storm
Still thrall your spirit—that it bides By far Iona's kelp-strewn shore, There lingering till time and tides
Shall surge no more.
ON THE UNVEILING OF THE SHAW MEMORIAL ON BOSTON COMMON, MAY THIRTY-FIRST, 1897
[ROBERT GOULD SHAW, 1837-1863]
Nor with slow, funereal sound
Come we to this sacred ground;
Not with wailing fife and solemn muffled drum, Bringing a cypress wreath
To lay, with bended knee, On the cold brows of Death-
Not so, dear God, we come, But with the trumpets' blare And shot-torn battle-banners flung to air, As for a victory!
Hark to the measured tread of martial feet, The music and the murmurs of the street! No bugle breathes this day
Disaster and retreat!
Hark, how the iron lips
Of the great battle-ships
Salute the City from her azure Bay!
Time was time was, ah, unforgotten years!
We paid our hero tribute of our tears.
All sounds and signs and formulas of woe: 'Tis Life, not Death, we celebrate; To Life, not Death, we dedicate This storied bronze, whereon is wrought The lithe immortal figure of our thought, To show forever to men's eyes,
Our children's children's children's eyes, How once he stood
In that heroic mood,
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