Shakespeare is not our poet, but the worlds,1 Therefore on him no speech! And brief for thee, Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale, No man hath walkd along our roads with steps So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue So varied in discourse.
But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue Within, and they that lustre have imbibed In the suns palace-porch, where when unyoked His chariot-wheel stands midway in the wave: Shake one, and it awakens; then apply Its polisht lips to your attentive ear,
Note 1. Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeares wit. Ralph Waldo Emerson: May-Day and Other Pieces. Solution. [back]