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FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE.

I.

TO SHAKESPEARE.

OFT, when my lips I open to rehearse
Thy wondrous spells of wisdom, and of power,
And that my voice, and thy immortal verse,
On listening ears and hearts, I mingled pour,
I shrink dismayed, and awful doth appear

The vain presumption of my own weak deed;
Thy glorious spirit seems to mine so near,
That suddenly I tremble as I read.
Thee an invisible auditor I fear.

O, if it might be so, my master dear!

With what beseeching would I pray to thee,

To make me equal to my noble task!
Succor from thee how humbly would I ask,

Thy worthiest works to utter worthily!

II.

WHAT is my lady like? thou fain wouldst know.
A rosy chaplet of fresh apple-bloom,

Bound with blue ribbon, lying on the snow.
What is my lady like? The violet gloom
Of evening, with deep orange light below.

She's like the noonday smell of a pine wood;
She's like the sounding of a stormy flood;
She's like a mountain-top high in the skies,

To which the day its earliest light doth lend; She's like a pleasant path without an end; Like a strange secret, and a sweet surprise ;

Like a sharp axe of doom, wreathed with blush-roses.

A casket full of gems whose key one loses;

Like a hard saying, wonderful and wise.

III.

TO THE NIGHTINGALE.

How passing sad! Listen, it sings again!
Art thou a spirit, that amongst the boughs
The livelong night dost chant that wondrous strain,
Making wan Dian stoop her silver brows

Out of the clouds to hear thee? Who shall say,
Thou lone one, that thy melody is gay?

Let him come listen now to that one note
That thou art pouring o'er and o'er again
Through the sweet echoes of thy mellow throat,
With such a sobbing sound of deep, deep pain.
I prithee cease thy song! for from my heart
Thou hast made memory's bitter waters start,

And filled my weary eyes with the soul's rain.

IV.

TO SHAKESPEARE.

IF from the height of that celestial sphere
Where now thou dwell'st, spirit powerful and sweet!
Thou yet canst love the race that sojourn here,
How must thou joy, with pleasure not unmeet
For thy exalted state, to know how dear
Thy memory is held throughout the earth,
Beyond the favored land that gave thee birth.
E'en in thy seat in heaven, thou mayst receive
Thanks, praise, and love, and wonder ever new,
From human hearts, who in thy verse perceive
All that humanity calls good and true;
Nor dost thou for each mortal blemish grieve.
They from thy glorious works have fallen away,
As from thy soul its outward form of clay.

V.

By jasper founts, whose falling waters make

Eternal music to the silent hours;

Or 'neath the gloom of solemn cypress bowers,
Through whose dark screen no prying sunbeams break

How oft I dream I see thee wandering,

With thy majestic mien, and thoughtful eyes,

And lips, whereon all holy counsel lies,

And shining tresses of soft rippling gold,
Like to some shape, beheld in days of old
By seer or prophet, when, as poets sing,
The gods had not forsaken yet the earth,
But loved to haunt each shady dell and grove ;
When every breeze was the soft breath of love;
When the blue air rang with sweet sounds of mirth,
And this dark world seemed fair as at its birth.

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