XIV

JAMES SHIRLEY

The dusk of day’s decline was hard on dark
  When evening trembled round thy glowworm lamp
  That shone across her shades and dewy damp
A small clear beacon whose benignant spark
Was gracious yet for loiterers’ eyes to mark,
  Though changed the watchword of our English camp
  Since the outposts rang round Marlowe’s lion ramp,
When thy steed’s pace went ambling round Hyde Park.

And in the thickening twilight under thee
Walks Davenant, pensive in the paths where he,
The blithest throat that ever carolled love
  In music made of morning’s merriest heart,
Glad Suckling, stumbled from his seat above
  And reeled on slippery roads of alien art.

XV

THE TRIBE OF BENJAMIN

Sons born of many a loyal Muse to Ben,
  All true-begotten, warm with wine or ale,
  Bright from the broad light of its presence, hail! 
Prince Randolph, nighest his throne of all his men,
Being highest in spirit and heart who hailed him then
  King, nor might other spread so blithe a sail: 
  Cartwright, a soul pent in with narrower pale,
Praised of thy sire for manful might of pen: 
Marmion, whose verse keeps alway keen and fine
The perfume of their Apollonian wine
  Who shared with that stout sire of all and thee
The exuberant chalice of his echoing shrine: 
  Is not your praise writ broad in gold which he
  Inscribed, that all who praise his name should see?

XVI

ANONYMOUS PLAYS: 

“ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM”

Mother whose womb brought forth our man of men,
  Mother of Shakespeare, whom all time acclaims
  Queen therefore, sovereign queen of English dames,
Throned higher than sat thy sonless empress then,
Was it thy son’s young passion-guided pen
  Which drew, reflected from encircling flames,
  A figure marked by the earlier of thy names
Wife, and from all her wedded kinswomen
Marked by the sign of murderess?  Pale and great,
  Great in her grief and sin, but in her death
  And anguish of her penitential breath
Greater than all her sin or sin-born fate,
  She stands, the holocaust of dark desire,
  Clothed round with song for ever as with fire.

XVII

ANONYMOUS PLAYS

Ye too, dim watchfires of some darkling hour,
  Whose fame forlorn time saves not nor proclaims
  For ever, but forgetfulness defames
And darkness and the shadow of death devour,
Lift up ye too your light, put forth your power,
  Let the far twilight feel your soft small flames
  And smile, albeit night name not even their names,
Ghost by ghost passing, flower blown down on flower: