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The Two Shakespeare Tercentaries

of birth, 1864; of death, 1916

To Shakespeare

Longer than thine, than thine, Is now my time of life; and thus thy years Seem to be clasped and harboured within mine. O how ignoble this my clasp appears!

Thy unprophetic birth, Thy darkling death: living I might have seen That cradle, marked those labours, closed that earth. O first, O last, O infinite between!

Now that my life has shared Thy dedicated date, O mortal, twice, To what all-vain embrace shall be compared My lean enclosure of thy paradise:

To ignorant arms that fold A poet to a foolish breast? The Line, That is not, with the world within its hold? So, days with days, my days encompass thine.

Child, Stripling, Man—the sod. Might I talk little language to thee, pore On thy last silence? O thou city of God, My waste lies after thee, and lies before.

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