Oh, what are England's lines of lords and kings,

Shakespeare, to thine, a-throb with thought and feeling?

In thine, imagination shines, revealing

The soul's convictions, swift on dawn-ward wings

From beastly life and such Hell-smelling things,

As wealth and pomp from church and abbey stealing,—

And hearts in hopes high Belfries, Heavenward pealing,

As Time, his Sun and Starry censor, swings.

Would thou wert England's Nature, Bard Supreme,

To fashion kings and lordlings fit to rule;

They would be flesh and blood, not fiend and ghoul;

And would thou wert her Sun, that every beam

Might not, for tally, show a youth's blood-pool,

Choking blithe Spring, as, now, to earth's extreme.