English

WORDSWORTH .

Earth ! through whom we come and go,
Mother of Prometheus! fair
Thy temples rose in warmer air,
Thou many-breasted, ever young,
To sounding cymbals wast thou sung
Two thousand years ago;
Yet here again
The wisest man of many men,
The truest bard of latest days
Has made his life thy hymn of praise.

DANIE AND BEATRICE .

A H , did she pass so coldly by
The tenderest love in all the earth,
Making his lifetime one long sigh,
That never knew a morn of mirth?
High up the Paradisal stair
Did he refind amidst the glare
This matron's breast without a heart,
Transformed to Theologic Art?

Ah, well for us 'tis not our part
In England's fresher, stronger air,
To shrine this saint-elected pair,
This mythologic, cleric dream,
Instead of Shakespeare, our supreme,

DANTE. II .

A CELTIC saint the tale once told, —
Ere Dante's birth the tale was old —
That he in faith, with mortal eyes
Had been uplifted through the skies,
And saw the winged in Paradise.
He had been hand led down below
Where Purgatorial sulphurs flow,
And round the furthest confines there
Had seen the vast high wall of Hell:
But not even angel-guides could tell
What horrors Satan might prepare
For inmates at the Judgment-knell;
As yet it was a waste, no soul

DANTE. I .

Before the dawn of modern day,
Saint Francis and Saint Dominic
Forgathered on sweet Fiesole.
They waled from all the young and quick
The tenderest heart on all the earth,
Now, said they, this thin heart and we
Shall make a bond, and it shall be
'Tween poetry and sulphurous fear;
Nor any more shall love make mirth
In Italy our garden dear,
Nor manhood's virtues hold a part
In our Italian rhythmic art.

So then, from market or from well,

THE KESSEISTADT MASK. (FROM AN ARTISTIC POINT OF VIEW) .

That round-cheeked, flat-faced Stratford bust
Sank one's ideal to the dust,
But heaven be praised, for by its grace
We have found our Shakespeare's face.

Gerard's own bust they well could spare,
So they mounted it up there!
As for the portrait by Droeshout,
Perhaps his fingers had the gout!

But here's the king of men divine, —
The Elizabethan profile line, —
Let Gerard and Droeshout give place —
We have found our Shakespeare's face.

SHAKESPEARE .

Give me but fame! the poetaster cries,
Standing on tiptoe so to touch the skies.

Why gather empty shells by God's ebb-shore,
Vital no more,
Records of what has been, what matter they?
My soul's in mine own hand to-day; —
Quoth Shakespeare, and to Stratford bent his way.

STRATFORD .

This is the street where Shakespeare's childhood grew
To Shakespeare's manhood, back to which he drew,
To walk in peace along the paths he knew
At morn and eve of quiet days
To hear the small birds' well-known lays,
To see the bat flit noiselessly,
And rooks against the molten sky,
He passed the loud-mouthed audience by,
And left to all the winds of fate
The poet's immortality,
Yea, even to the green-room care
Heminge and Condell had to spare.

Forgive great Sir, this bold Essay
Your Merits to disclose;
My first Intentions were to pay
Our grateful Thanks in Prose:
But then the chiming Muse drew near,
And cry'd, the Work belong'd to her;
Tho' soon her rash Attempt she saw,
As hasty then her Service to withdraw;
Too weak her Wings to soar so high,
Yet too desirous, not to try.
When Lo!
Great Dryden's Muse appear'd,
And with maternal Looks her drooping Spirits chear'd,
Fate's Secrets then she did reveal,
And charg'd she should obey

Apollo heard the Infant bless'd,
And humbly did implore,
That he to sweeten all the Rest
Might add one Blessing more,
Accept from me (cry'd he) this tuneful Lyre,
And when fatigu'd with Patients Cires,
The Burden which thy Fate prepares,
'Twill gayer Thoughts inspire.
'Twill sing Nassaw whom all revere
In Notes deserving Nassaw's Ear.
Vice it will lash, and Vertue praise,
And crown thy Head with lasting Bays.
This said!
Propitious Jove did to the Gift agree,

Jove, who rules the Pow'rs above,
And governs all below;
For all that's good descends from Jove,
Who did this Gift bestow;
The new created Work with Pleasure view'd,
And bounteously with ev'ry Grace endued.
Go thou, (said he) on Earth appear,
In ev'ry Art excel,
Heal the Sick and chear the Well,
And be a second Æsculapius there.
In medick Skill thou shalt surpass
All that are, or ever was:
Disease thy dreaded Sight shall know,
And own that Pow'r I now bestow.
Go then!