  The mightiest choir of song that memory hears Gave England voice for fifty lustrous years. Sunrise and thunder fired and shook the skies That saw the sun-god Marlowe's opening eyes. The morn's own music, answered of the sea, Spake, when his living lips bade Shakespeare be, And England, made by Shakespeare's quickening breath Divine and deathless even till life be death, Brought forth to time such godlike sons of men That shamefaced love grows pride, and now seems then. Shame that their day so shone, so sang, so died, Remembering, finds remembrance one with pride. That day was clouding toward a stormlit close When Ford's red sphere upon the twilight rose. Sublime with stars and sunset fire, the sky Glowed as though day, nigh dead, should never die. Sorrow supreme and strange as chance or doom Shone, spake, and shuddered through the lustrous gloom. Tears lit with love made all the darkening air Bright as though death's dim sunrise thrilled it there And life re-risen took comfort. Stern and still As hours and years that change and anguish fill, Dwelt dumb till power possessed it, and it spoke. Strange, calm, and sure as sense of beast or bird, Came forth from night the thought that breathed the word; That chilled and thrilled with passion-stricken breath Halls where Calantha trod the dance of death. A strength of soul too passionately pure To change for aught that horror bids endure, To quail and wail and weep faint life away Ere sovereign sorrow smite, relent, and slay, Sustained her silent, till her bridal bloom Changed, smiled, and waned in rapture toward the tomb. Terror twin-born with pity kissed and thrilled The lips that Shakespeare's word or Webster's filled: Here both, cast out, fell silent: pity shrank, Rebuked, and terror, spirit-stricken, sank: The soul assailed arose afar above All reach of all but only death and love. |
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