Shakespeare

THERS 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 stedfast footsteps in the sea,
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,
Spares but the cloudy border of his base
To the foil'd searching of mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure, Didst tread on earth unguess'd 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.

“When Burbadge Played

W

HEN Burbadge played, the stage was bare
Of fount and temple, tower and stair;
Two backswords eked a battle out;
Two supers made a rabble rout;
The Throne of Denmark was a chair!

And yet, no less, the audience there
Thrilled through all changes of Despair,
Hope, Anger, Fear, Delight, and Doubt
When Burbadge played!

This is the Actor's gift; to share
All moods, all passions, nor to care
One whit for scene, so he without
Can lead men's minds the roundabout,
Stirred as of old those hearers were

When Burbadge played!

Austin Dobson.

To Charles Kemble

JAREWELL! all good wishes go with him today,

Rich in name, rich in fame, he has play'd out the play.

Though the sock and the buskin for aye be
removed

Still he serves in the train of the drama he loved.
We now who surround him, would make some amends
For past years of enjoyment-we court him as friends,
Our chief, nobly born, genius crown'd, our zeal shares,
O, his coronet's hid by the laurel he wears.

Shall we never again see his spirit infuse

Life, life in the gay gallant forms of the Muse,
Through the lovers and heroes of Shakespeare he ran,
All the soul of a soldier, the heart of the man-
Shall we never in Cyprus his spirit retrace,
See him stroll into Angiers with indolent grace,
Or greet him in bonnet at fair Dunsinane—
Or meet him in moonlight Verona again!

Let the curtain come down. Let the scene pass awayThere's an autumn when summer has squander'd her day:

We sit by the fire when we can't by the lamp,
And re-people the banquet, re-soldier the camp.
O, nothing can rob us of memory's gold:

And though he quit the gorgeous, and we may grow old, With our Shakespeare in hand, and bright forms in our

We can dream up our Siddons and Kembles again.

J. Hamilton Reynolds.

From "The Progress of Poesy"

AR from the sun and summer gale,

In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,

To him the mighty Mother did unveil
Her awful face: the dauntless child

Stretch'd forth his little arms and smiled.

"This pencil take (she said), whose colours clear Richly paint the vernal year:

Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy!

This can unlock the gates of Joy;

Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears."

Nor second he, that rode sublime

Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy,
The secrets of th' abyss to spy.

He pass'd the flaming bounds of Place and Time: The living Throne, the sapphire-blaze,

Where Angels tremble while they gaze,

He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night.

Gray.

A

Milton

E left the upland lawns and serene air

Wherefrom his soul her noble nurture drew,
And reared his helm among the unquiet crew
Battling beneath; the morning radiance rare
Of his young brow amid the tumult there
Grew grim with sulphurous dust and sanguine dew:
Yet through all soilure they who marked him knew
The sign of his life's dayspring, calm and fair.
But when peace came, peace fouler far than war,
And mirth more dissonant than battle's tone,
He, with a scornful sigh of that clear soul,

Back to his mountain clomb, now bleak and frore,
And with the awful Night he dwelt alone,

In darkness, listening to the thunder's roll.

Ernest Myers.

A

To Ben Jonson

H Ben!

Say how, or when

Shall we, thy guests,
Meet at those lyric feasts,

Made at the Sun,

The Dog, the Triple Tun?
Where we such clusters had,

As made us nobly wild, not mad;

And yet each verse of thine

Out-did the meat, out-did the frolic wine.

My Ben!

Or come again,

Or send to us

Thy wit's great overplus;
But teach us yet

Wisely to husband it,

Lest we that talent spend;

And having once brought to an end

That precious stock,-the store

Of such a wit the world should have no more.

Herrick.

The Tomb of Burns

W

HAT woos the world to yonder shrine?
What sacred clay, what dust divine?
Was this some Master faultless-fine,
In whom we praise

The cunning of the jewelled line

And carven phrase?

A searcher of our source and goal,
A reader of God's secret scroll?

A Shakespeare, flashing o'er the whole

Of man's domain

The splendour of his cloudless soul
And perfect brain?

Some Keats, to Grecian gods allied,
Clasping all Beauty as his bride?
Some Shelley, soaring dim-descried
Above Time's throng,

And heavenward hurling wild and wide
His spear of song?