How shall we speak of him whose cherish'd name Is link'd to glorious and undying fame;
Poet of every clime, and class, and age,
The worshipp'd wonder of the world's wide stage!
What pen can write, what tongue can speak of him
In terms that seems not lustreless and dim?
Yet turn we ever wondering to the past,
To pierce the shroud round Shakspere's greatness
How look'd he in his mortal life, how spoke
Those lips that passions numberless have woke?
How fashion'd was the temple that enshrined
The rare and matchless jewel of his mind?
What was the seeming of his human form,
Ere it became a dweller of the worm?
What were the sources from whose founts he drew
His draughts of knowledge, ever fresh and true?
What volumes came before his studious sight,
Whose leaves for him bore fruits of wise delight?
Who were the co-mates of that wondrous man,
Who knew alike both prince and artizan?
With equal skill he painted mirth and woe-
What joys were his, what sorrows did he know?
Alike he knew the smallest, greatest things,
The schemes of pedlars, and the plots of kings,
The buoyant hopes of youth, the cares of age,
The quips of jester, and the saws of sage.
With fairy elves he fill'd the mystic green,
Or cast his spells o'er some enchanted scene;
For him the past gave up its mighty dead,
And heroes paced again with mailed tread ;
He waved at will his ever potent wand,
And forms appear'd from known and unknown land:
His genius and his life must ever be
At once a miracle and mystery?
Great Shakspere !—at the name each bosom thrills,
And every heart with fond emotion fills--
Glory of nations! 'tis our boast and pride
To say on England's shore he lived and died!
In his own birth-place did his eye-lids close,
In native earth his "honour'd bones" repose.
No high ancestral lineage did he trace,
He was the best and greatest of his race,
Noblest of nobles, king of sovereign men,
Who sway the soul, whose sceptre is the pen.
Wherever mind curbs might, or thought is free,
The people own his heart-throned majesty.
We have the dwelling where his childish eyes
First learn'd to look upon the blessed skies,
Where once he clung around the parent knee,
And lisp'd the words of guileless infancy.
There pass'd the morning of his life, whose prime
Pour'd quenchless splendour o'er his land and time;
And near that home came on his eve and night—
To him the heralds of immortal light.
And shall we suffer then to pass away
Our Shakspere's home like things of common clay;
Shall ruin desecrate his loved retreat,
The hallow'd shrine of thousand pilgrim feet?
It must not be?—those lowly walls shall stand,
Guarded with reverent care, to grace the land;
And countless suns shall yet a radiance shed
O'er that dear roof which shelter'd Shakspere's head!
OH! DOST THOU REMEMBER THOSE MOMENTS OF GLADNESS.
OH! dost thou remember those moments of gladness,
That faded away like a dream of delight,
And left us to pine o'er their absence in sadness, As we muse o'er bright visions in darkness of
That joy was a blossom my pathway adorning,
Too rich in its odour and beauty to last,
As the flower which has birth with the light of the morning,
And dies when the day and the sunbeams have
Loved voices cheer'd us, and laughter was ringing,
More merry than bells in the gay bridal-hour; Time o'er our heads was as rapidly winging, As ever it flew o'er a love-haunted bower;
Thine eyes were twin-orbs, that were beaming with splendour,
More bright than the stars when the clouds they
But, oh! their pure light was so witching and tender, That to me they seem'd violets sprinkled with dew.
Enchanting the tones in mine ear thou wert breathing,
Mine was a bliss that my tongue could not speak, For the tresses of beauty, thy fair face enwreathing, The wandering breezes swept over my cheek; Blest moments at times from our cares we may borrow,
That years of our life we would give to recall ; But, oh! in my course through this valley of sorrow,
Those moments with thee were the sweetest of all!
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