Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

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.

Ben Jonson [1573?-1637]

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.

Ben Jonson [1573?-1637]

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

SHAKESPEARE

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.
John Milton [1608-16741

TO WILLIAM SHARP

FIONA MACLEOD

[1856-1905]

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.

Clinton Scollard [1860- 1

[blocks in formation]

ON THE UNVEILING OF THE SHAW MEMORIAL ON BOSTON

COMMON, MAY THIRTY-FIRST, 1897

[ROBERT GOULD SHAW, 1837-1863]

I

NOT 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!

II

Time was time was, ah, unforgotten years!

We paid our hero tribute of our tears.

But now let go

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,

« PredošláPokračovať »