| |
| O THOU to whom, athwart the perished days | |
| And parted nights, long sped, we lift our gaze, | |
| Behold! I greet thee with a modern rhyme, | |
| Love-lit and reverent as befits the time, | |
| To solemnize the feast-day of thy son. | 5 |
| |
| And who was he who flourished in the smiles | |
| Of thy fair face? ’T was Shakespeare of the Isles, | |
| Shakespeare of England, whom the world has known | |
| As thine, and ours, and Glory’s, in the zone | |
| Of all the seas and all the lands of earth. | 10 |
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| He was unfamous when he came to thee, | |
| But sound, and sweet, and good for eyes to see, | |
| And born at Stratford, on St. George’s Day, | |
| A week before the wondrous month of May; | |
| And God therein was gracious to us all. | 15 |
| |
| He loved thee, lady! and he loved the world; | |
| And, like a flag, his fealty was unfurled; | |
| And kings who flourished ere thy son was born | |
| Shall live through him, from morn to furthest morn, | |
| In all the far-off cycles yet to come. | 20 |
| |
| He gave us Falstaff, and a hundred quips, | |
| A hundred mottoes from immortal lips; | |
| And, year by year, we smile to keep away | |
| The generous tears that mind us of the sway | |
| Of his great singing, and the pomp thereof. | 25 |
| |
| His was the nectar of the gods of Greece, | |
| The lute of Orpheus, and the Golden Fleece | |
| Of grand endeavor; and the thunder-roll | |
| Of words majestic, which, from pole to pole, | |
| Have borne the tidings of our English tongue. | 30 |
| |
| He gave us Hamlet; and he taught us more | |
| Than schools have taught us; and his fairy-lore | |
| Was fraught with science; and he called from death | |
| Verona’s lovers, with the burning breath | |
| Of their great passion that has filled the spheres. | 35 |
| |
| He made us know Cordelia, and the man | |
| Who murdered sleep, and baleful Caliban; | |
| And, one by one, athwart the gloom appeared | |
| Maidens and men and myths who were revered | |
| In olden days, before the earth was sad. | 40 |
| |
| Ay! this is true. It was ordainéd so; | |
| He was thine own, three hundred years ago; | |
| But ours to-day; and ours till earth be red | |
| With doom-day splendor for the quick and dead, | |
| And days and nights be scattered like the leaves. | 45 |
| |
| It was for this he lived, for this he died: | |
| To raise to Heaven the face that never lied, | |
| To lean to earth the lips that should become | |
| Fraught with conviction when the mouth was dumb, | |
| And all the firm, fine body turned to clay. | 50 |
| |
| He lived to seal, and sanctify, the lives | |
| Of perished maids, and uncreated wives, | |
| And gave them each a space wherein to dwell; | |
| And for his mother’s sake he loved them well | |
| And made them types undying of all truth. | 55 |
| |
| O fair and fond young mother of the boy | |
| Who wrought all this—O Mary!—in this the joy | |
| Didst thou perceive, when, fitful from his rest, | |
| He turned to thee, that his would be the best | |
| Of all men’s chanting since the world began? | 60 |
| |
| Didst thou, O Mary! with the eye of trust | |
| Perceive, prophetic through the dark and dust | |
| Of things terrene, the glory of thy son, | |
| And all the pride therein that should be won | |
| By toilsome men, content to be his slaves? | 65 |
| |
| Didst thou, good mother! in the tender ways | |
| That women find to fill the fleeting days, | |
| Behold afar the Giant who should rise | |
| With foot on earth, and forehead in the skies, | |
| To write his name and thine among the stars? | 70 |
| |
| I love to think it; and in dreams at night | |
| I see thee stand, erect, and all in white, | |
| With hands out-yearning to that mighty form, | |
| As if to draw him back from out the storm— | |
| A child again, and thine to nurse withal. | 75 |
| |
| I see thee, pale and pure, with flowing hair, | |
| And big, bright eyes—far-searching in the air | |
| For thy sweet babe—and, in a trice of time, | |
| I see the boy advance to thee, and climb, | |
| And call thee “Mother!” in ecstatic tones. | 80 |
| |
| Yet if my thought be vain—if, by a touch | |
| Of this weak hand, I vex thee overmuch— | |
| Forbear the blame, sweet Spirit! and endow | |
| My heart with fervor while to thee I bow | |
| Athwart the threshold of my fading dream. | 85 |
| |
| For—though so seeming-bold in this my song— | |
| I turn to thee with reverence, in the throng | |
| Of words and thoughts, as shepherds scanned afar | |
| The famed effulgence of that eastern star | |
| Which ushered in the Crowned One of the heavens. | 90 |
| |
| In dreams of rapture I have seen thee pass | |
| Along the banks of Avon, by the grass, | |
| As fair as that fair Juliet whom thy son | |
| Endowed with life, but with the look of one | |
| Who knows the nearest way to some new grave. | 95 |
| |
| And often, too, I ’ve seen thee in the flush | |
| Of thy full beauty, while the mother’s “Hush!” | |
| Hung on thy lip, and all thy tangled hair | |
| Re-clothed a bosom that in part was bare | |
| Because a tiny hand had toyed therewith! | 100 |
| |
| Oh! by the June-tide splendor of thy face | |
| When, eight weeks old, the child in thine embrace | |
| Did leap and laugh—O Mary! by the same, | |
| I bow to thee, subservient to thy fame, | |
| And call thee England’s Pride forevermore! | 105 |
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