The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
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Table of Contents | |
Section | Page |
Start of eBook | 1 |
SONNETS: | 1 |
SONNETS ON ENGLISH DRAMATIC POETS | 1 |
SONNETS | 2 |
AFTER SUNSET | 2 |
I | 2 |
II | 2 |
III | 3 |
A STUDY FROM MEMORY | 3 |
TO DR. JOHN BROWN | 3 |
TO WILLIAM BELL SCOTT | 3 |
A DEATH ON EASTER DAY | 4 |
ON THE DEATHS OF THOMAS CARLYLE AND GEORGE ELIOT | 4 |
AFTER LOOKING INTO CARLYLE’S REMINISCENCES | 4 |
I | 4 |
II | 4 |
A LAST LOOK | 5 |
DICKENS | 5 |
ON LAMB’S SPECIMENS OF DRAMATIC POETS | 5 |
I | 5 |
II | 5 |
TO JOHN NICHOL | 6 |
I | 6 |
II | 6 |
DYSTHANATOS | 6 |
EUONYMOS | 7 |
7 | |
BISMARCK AT CANOSSA | 7 |
QUIA NOMINOR LEO | 7 |
I | 7 |
II | 8 |
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL | 8 |
SIR WILLIAM GOMM | 8 |
I | 8 |
II | 9 |
SONNETS | 9 |
ENGLISH DRAMATIC POETS | 9 |
I | 9 |
II | 9 |
III | 9 |
IV | 10 |
V | 10 |
VI | 10 |
VII | 10 |
VIII | 11 |
IX | 11 |
X | 11 |
XI | 12 |
XII | 12 |
XIII | 12 |
XIV | 13 |
XV | 13 |
XVI | 13 |
XVII | 13 |
XVIII | 14 |
XIX | 14 |
I | 14 |
XX | 14 |
II | 14 |
XXI | 15 |
EPILOGUE | 15 |
Hope and fear
227
after sunset
228
A Study from memory
230
to Dr. John Brown
231
to William Bell Scott
232
A death on Easter day
233
on the deaths of Thomas Carlyle
and George Eliot
234
after looking into CARLYLE’S
reminiscences 235
A last Look
237
Dickens
238
on lamb’s specimens of dramatic
poets 239
to John Nichol
241
DYSTHANATOS
243
EUONYMOS
244
on the Russian persecution of
the Jews 245
Bismarck at Canossa
246
QUIA NOMINOR Leo
247
the Channel Tunnel
249
sir William Gomm
250
1590-1650
I. Christopher Marlowe 297 II. William Shakespeare 298 III. Ben Jonson 299 IV. Beaumont and Fletcher 300 V. Philip Massinger 301 VI. John Ford 302 VII. John Webster 303 VIII. Thomas Decker 304 IX. Thomas Middleton 305 X. Thomas Heywood 306 XI. George Chapman 307 XII. John Marston 308 XIII. John Day 309 XIV. James Shirley 310Page 2
XV. The Tribe of Benjamin 311 XVI. Anonymous Plays: “Arden of Feversham” 312 XVII. Anonymous Plays 313 XVIII. Anonymous Plays 314 XIX. The Many 315 XX. The Many 316 XXI. Epilogue 317
HOPE AND FEAR
Beneath the shadow of dawn’s aerial cope,
With eyes enkindled as the sun’s
own sphere,
Hope from the front of youth in godlike
cheer
Looks Godward, past the shades where blind men grope
Round the dark door that prayers nor dreams can ope,
And makes for joy the very darkness dear
That gives her wide wings play; nor dreams
that fear
At noon may rise and pierce the heart of hope.
Then, when the soul leaves off to dream and yearn,
May truth first purge her eyesight to discern
What once being known leaves time no power
to appal;
Till youth at last, ere yet youth be not, learn
The kind wise word that falls from years
that fall—
“Hope thou not much, and fear thou
not at all.”
“Si quis piorum Manibus locus.”
Straight from the sun’s grave in the deep clear
west
A sweet strong wind blows, glad of life:
and I,
Under the soft keen stardawn whence the
sky
Takes life renewed, and all night’s godlike
breast
Palpitates, gradually revealed at rest
By growth and change of ardours felt on
high,
Make onward, till the last flame fall
and die
And all the world by night’s broad hand lie
blest.
Haply, meseems, as from that edge of death,
Whereon the day lies dark, a brightening breath
Blows more of benediction than the morn,
So from the graves whereon grief gazing saith
That half our heart of life there lies
forlorn
May light or breath at least of hope be
born.
The wind was soft before the sunset fled:
Now, while the cloud-enshrouded corpse
of day
Is lowered along a red funereal way
Down to the dark that knows not white from red,
A clear sheer breeze against the night makes head,
Serene, but sure of life as ere a ray
Springs, or the dusk of dawn knows red
from grey,
Being as a soul that knows not quick from dead.
From far beyond the sunset, far above,
Full toward the starry soundless east
it blows
Bright as a child’s breath breathing
on a rose,
Smooth to the sense as plume of any dove;
Till more and more as darkness grows and
glows
Silence and night seem likest life and love.
If light of life outlive the set of sun
That men call death and end of all things,
then
How should not that which life held best
for men
And proved most precious, though it seem undone
By force of death and woful victory won,
Be first and surest of revival, when
Death shall bow down to life arisen again?
So shall the soul seen be the self-same one
That looked and spake with even such lips and eyes
As love shall doubt not then to recognise,
And all bright thoughts and smiles of
all time past
Revive, transfigured, but in spirit and sense
None other than we knew, for evidence
That love’s last mortal word was
not his last.
If that be yet a living soul which here
Seemed brighter for the growth of numbered
springs
And clothed by Time and Pain with goodlier
things
Each year it saw fulfilled a fresh fleet year,
Death can have changed not aught that made it dear;
Half humorous goodness, grave-eyed mirth
on wings
Bright-balanced, blither-voiced than quiring
strings;
Most radiant patience, crowned with conquering cheer;
A spirit inviolable that smiled and sang
By might of nature and heroic need
More sweet and strong than loftiest dream
or deed;
A song that shone, a light whence music rang
High as the sunniest heights of kindliest
thought;
All these must be, or all she was be nought.
Beyond the north wind lay the land of old
Where men dwelt blithe and blameless,
clothed and fed
With joy’s bright raiment and with
love’s sweet bread,
The whitest flock of earth’s maternal fold.
None there might wear about his brows enrolled
A light of lovelier fame than rings your
head,
Whose lovesome love of children and the
dead
All men give thanks for: I far off behold
A dear dead hand that links us, and a light
The blithest and benignest of the night,
The night of death’s sweet sleep,
wherein may be
A star to show your spirit in present sight
Some happier island in the Elysian sea
Where Rab may lick the hand of Marjorie.
March 1882.
The larks are loud above our leagues of whin
Now the sun’s perfume fills their
glorious gold
With odour like the colour: all the
wold
Is only light and song and wind wherein
These twain are blent in one with shining din.
And now your gift, a giver’s kingly-souled,
Dear old fast friend whose honours grow
not old,
Bids memory’s note as loud and sweet begin.
Though all but we from life be now gone forth
Of that bright household in our joyous north
Where I, scarce clear of boyhood just at end,
First met your hand; yet under life’s
clear dome,
Now seventy strenuous years have crowned my friend,
Shines no less bright his full-sheaved
harvest-home.
April 20, 1882.
The strong spring sun rejoicingly may rise,
Rise and make revel, as of old men said,
Like dancing hearts of lovers newly wed:
A light more bright than ever bathed the skies
Departs for all time out of all men’s eyes.
The crowns that girt last night a living
head
Shine only now, though deathless, on the
dead:
Art that mocks death, and Song that never dies.
Albeit the bright sweet mothlike wings be furled,
Hope sees, past all division and defection,
And higher than swims the
mist of human breath,
The soul most radiant once in all the world
Requickened to regenerate resurrection
Out of the likeness of the
shadow of death.
April 1882.
Two souls diverse out of our human sight
Pass, followed one with love and each
with wonder:
The stormy sophist with his mouth of thunder,
Clothed with loud words and mantled in the might
Of darkness and magnificence of night;
And one whose eye could smite the night
in sunder,
Searching if light or no light were thereunder,
And found in love of loving-kindness light.
Duty divine and Thought with eyes of fire
Still following Righteousness with deep desire
Shone sole and stern before her and above,
Sure stars and sole to steer by; but more sweet
Shone lower the loveliest lamp for earthly feet,
The light of little children, and their
love.
Three men lived yet when this dead man was young
Whose names and words endure for ever:
one
Whose eyes grew dim with straining toward
the sun,
And his wings weakened, and his angel’s tongue
Lost half the sweetest song was ever sung,
But like the strain half uttered earth
hears none,
Nor shall man hear till all men’s
songs are done:
One whose clear spirit like an eagle hung
Between the mountains hallowed by his love
And the sky stainless as his soul above:
And one the sweetest heart that ever spake
The brightest words wherein sweet wisdom smiled.
These deathless names by this dead snake defiled
Bid memory spit upon him for their sake.
Sweet heart, forgive me for thine own sweet sake,
Whose kind blithe soul such seas of sorrow
swam,
And for my love’s sake, powerless
as I am
For love to praise thee, or like thee to make
Music of mirth where hearts less pure would break,
Less pure than thine, our life-unspotted
Lamb.
Things hatefullest thou hadst not heart
Sick of self-love, Malvolio, like an owl
That hoots the sun rerisen where starlight
sank,
With German garters crossed athwart thy
frank
Stout Scottish legs, men watched thee snarl and scowl,
And boys responsive with reverberate howl
Shrilled, hearing how to thee the springtime
stank
And as thine own soul all the world smelt
rank
And as thine own thoughts Liberty seemed foul.
Now, for all ill thoughts nursed and ill words given
Not all condemned, not utterly forgiven,
Son of the storm and darkness, pass in
peace.
Peace upon earth thou knewest not: now, being
dead,
Rest, with nor curse nor blessing on thine head,
Where high-strung hate and strenuous envy
cease.
Chief in thy generation born of men
Whom English praise acclaimed as English-born,
With eyes that matched the worldwide eyes
of morn
For gleam of tears or laughter, tenderest then
When thoughts of children warmed their light, or when
Reverence of age with love and labour
worn,
Or godlike pity fired with godlike scorn,
Shot through them flame that winged thy swift live
pen:
Where stars and suns that we behold not burn,
Higher even than here, though highest
was here thy place,
Love sees thy spirit laugh
and speak and shine
With Shakespeare and the soft bright soul of Sterne
And Fielding’s kindliest might and
Goldsmith’s grace;
Scarce one more loved or worthier
love than thine.
If all the flowers of all the fields on earth
By wonder-working summer were made one,
Its fragrance were not sweeter in the
sun,
Its treasure-house of leaves were not more worth
Than those wherefrom thy light of musing mirth
Shone, till each leaf whereon thy pen
would run
Breathed life, and all its breath was
benison.
Beloved beyond all names of English birth,
More dear than mightier memories; gentlest name
That ever clothed itself with flower-sweet fame,
Or linked itself with loftiest names of old
By right and might of loving; I, that
am
Less than the least of those within thy fold,
Give only thanks for them to thee, Charles
Lamb.
So many a year had borne its own bright bees
And slain them since thy honey-bees were
hived,
John Day, in cells of flower-sweet verse
contrived
So well with craft of moulding melodies,
Thy soul perchance in amaranth fields at ease
Thought not to hear the sound on earth
revived
Of summer music from the spring derived
When thy song sucked the flower of flowering trees.
But thine was not the chance of every day:
Time, after many a darkling hour, grew
sunny,
And light between the clouds
ere sunset swam,
Laughing, and kissed their darkness all away,
When, touched and tasted and approved,
thy honey
Took subtler sweetness from
the lips of Lamb.
Friend of the dead, and friend of all my days
Even since they cast off boyhood, I salute
The song saluting friends whose songs
are mute
With full burnt-offerings of clear-spirited praise.
That since our old young years our several ways
Have led through fields diverse of flower
and fruit,
Yet no cross wind has once relaxed the
root
We set long since beneath the sundawn’s rays,
The root of trust whence towered the trusty tree,
Friendship—this only and duly
might impel
My song to salutation of your
own;
More even than praise of one unseen of me
And loved—the starry spirit
of Dobell,
To mine by light and music
only known.
But more than this what moves me most of all
To leave not all unworded and unsped
The whole heart’s greeting of my
thanks unsaid
Scarce needs this sign, that from my tongue should
fall
His name whom sorrow and reverent love recall,
The sign to friends on earth of that dear
head
Alive, which now long since untimely dead
The wan grey waters covered for a pall.
Their trustless reaches dense with tangling stems
Took never life more taintless of rebuke,
More pure and perfect, more
serene and kind,
Than when those clear eyes closed beneath the Thames,
And made the now more hallowed name of
Luke
Memorial to us of morning
left behind.
May 1881.
Ad generem Cereris sine caede et vulnere pauci Descendunt reges, aut sicca morte tyranni.
By no dry death another king goes down
The way of kings. Yet may no free
man’s voice,
For stern compassion and deep awe, rejoice
That one sign more is given against the crown,
That one more head those dark red waters drown
Which rise round thrones whose trembling
equipoise
Is propped on sand and bloodshed and such
toys
As human hearts that shrink at human frown.
The name writ red on Polish earth, the star
That was to outshine our England’s in the far
East heaven of empire—where
is one that saith
Proud words now, prophesying of this White Czar?
“In bloodless pangs few kings yield
up their breath,
Few tyrants perish by no violent death.”
March 14, 1881.
[Greek: eu men he timen edidou nikephoros alke ek nikes onom’ esche phobou kear aien athiktos.]
A year ago red wrath and keen despair
Spake, and the sole word from their darkness
sent
Laid low the lord not all omnipotent
Who stood most like a god of all that were
As gods for pride of power, till fire and air
Made earth of all his godhead. Lightning
rent
The heart of empire’s lurid firmament,
And laid the mortal core of manhood bare.
But when the calm crowned head that all revere
For valour higher than that which casts out fear,
Since fear came near it never, comes near
death,
Blind murder cowers before it, knowing that here
No braver soul drew bright and queenly
breath
Since England wept upon Elizabeth.
March 8, 1882.
ON THE RUSSIAN PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS
O son of man, by lying tongues adored,
By slaughterous hands of slaves with feet
red-shod
In carnage deep as ever Christian trod
Profaned with prayer and sacrifice abhorred
And incense from the trembling tyrant’s horde,
Brute worshippers or wielders of the rod,
Most murderous even of all that call thee
God,
Most treacherous even that ever called thee Lord;
Face loved of little children long ago,
Head hated of the priests and rulers then,
If thou see this, or hear
these hounds of thine
Run ravening as the Gadarean
swine,
Say, was not this thy Passion, to foreknow
In death’s worst hour the works
of Christian men?
January 23, 1882.
Not all disgraced, in that Italian town,
The imperial German cowered beneath thine
hand,
Alone indeed imperial Hildebrand,
And felt thy foot and Rome’s, and felt her frown
And thine, more strong and sovereign than his crown,
Though iron forged its blood-encrusted
band.
But now the princely wielder of his land,
For hatred’s sake toward freedom, so bows down,
No strength is in the foot to spurn: its tread
Can bruise not now the proud submitted head:
But how much more abased, much lower brought
low,
And more intolerably humiliated,
The neck submissive of the prosperous
foe,
Than his whom scorn saw shuddering in
the snow!
December 31, 1881.
What part is left thee, lion? Ravenous beast,
Which hadst the world for pasture, and
for scope
And compass of thine homicidal hope
The kingdom of the spirit of man, the feast
Of souls subdued from west to sunless east,
From blackening north to bloodred south
aslope,
All servile; earth for footcloth of the
pope,
And heaven for chancel-ceiling of the priest;
Thou that hadst earth by right of rack and rod,
Thou that hadst Rome because thy name was God,
And by thy creed’s gift heaven wherein
to dwell;
Heaven laughs with all his light and might above
That earth has cast thee out of faith and love;
Thy part is but the hollow dream of hell.
The light of life has faded from thy cause,
High priest of heaven and hell and purgatory:
Thy lips are loud with strains of oldworld
story,
But the red prey was rent out of thy paws
Long since: and they that dying brake down thy
laws
Have with the fires of death-enkindled
glory
Put out the flame that faltered on thy
hoary
High altars, waning with the world’s applause.
This Italy was Dante’s: Bruno died
Here: Campanella, too sublime for pride,
Endured thy God’s worst here, and
hence went home.
And what art thou, that time’s full tide should
shrink
For thy sake downward? What art thou, to think
Thy God shall give thee back for birthright
Rome?
January 1882.
Not for less love, all glorious France, to thee,
“Sweet enemy” called in days
long since at end,
Now found and hailed of England sweeter
friend,
Bright sister of our freedom now, being free;
Not for less love or faith in friendship we
Whose love burnt ever toward thee reprehend
The vile vain greed whose pursy dreams
portend
Between our shores suppression of the sea.
Not by dull toil of blind mechanic art
Shall these be linked for no man’s force to
part
Nor length of years and changes to divide,
But union only of trust and loving heart
And perfect faith in freedom strong to
abide
And spirit at one with spirit on either
side.
April 3, 1882.
At threescore years and five aroused anew
To rule in India, forth a soldier went
On whose bright-fronted youth fierce war
had spent
Its iron stress of storm, till glory grew
Full as the red sun waned on Waterloo.
Landing, he met the word from England
sent
Which bade him yield up rule: and
he, content,
Resigned it, as a mightier warrior’s due;
And wrote as one rejoicing to record
That “from the first” his royal heart
was lord
Of its own pride or pain; that thought
was none
Therein save this, that in her perilous strait
England, whose womb brings forth her sons so great,
Should choose to serve her first her mightiest
son.
Glory beyond all flight of warlike fame
Go with the warrior’s memory who
preferred
To praise of men whereby men’s hearts
are stirred,
And acclamation of his own proud name
With blare of trumpet-blasts and sound and flame
Of pageant honour, and the titular word
That only wins men worship of the herd,
His country’s sovereign good; who overcame
Pride, wrath, and hope of all high chance on earth,
For this land’s love that gave his great heart
birth.
O nursling of the sea-winds and the sea,
Immortal England, goddess ocean-born,
What shall thy children fear, what strengths not scorn,
While children of such mould are born
to thee?
ON
(1590-1650)
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
Crowned, girdled, garbed and shod with light and fire,
Son first-born of the morning, sovereign
star!
Soul nearest ours of all, that wert most
far,
Most far off in the abysm of time, thy lyre
Hung highest above the dawn-enkindled quire
Where all ye sang together, all that are,
And all the starry songs behind thy car
Rang sequence, all our souls acclaim thee sire.
“If all the pens that ever poets held
Had fed the feeling of their masters’
thoughts,”
And as with rush of hurtling chariots
The flight of all their spirits were impelled
Toward one great end, thy glory—nay,
not then,
Not yet might’st thou be praised
enough of men.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Not if men’s tongues and angels’ all in
one
Spake, might the word be said that might
speak Thee.
Streams, winds, woods, flowers, fields,
mountains, yea, the sea,
What power is in them all to praise the sun?
His praise is this,—he can be praised of
none.
Man, woman, child, praise God for him;
but he
Exults not to be worshipped, but to be.
He is; and, being, beholds his work well done.
All joy, all glory, all sorrow, all strength, all
mirth,
Are his: without him, day were night on earth.
Time knows not his from time’s own
period.
All lutes, all harps, all viols, all flutes, all lyres,
Fall dumb before him ere one string suspires.
All stars are angels; but the sun is God.
BEN JONSON
Broad-based, broad-fronted, bounteous, multiform,
With many a valley impleached with ivy
and vine,
Wherein the springs of all the streams
run wine,
And many a crag full-faced against the storm,
The mountain where thy Muse’s feet made warm
Those lawns that revelled with her dance
divine
Shines yet with fire as it was wont to
shine
From tossing torches round the dance aswarm.
Nor less, high-stationed on the grey grave heights,
High-thoughted seers with heaven’s heart-kindling
lights
Hold converse: and the herd of meaner
things
Knows or by fiery scourge or fiery shaft
When wrath on thy broad brows has risen, and laughed
Darkening thy soul with shadow of thunderous
wings.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER
An hour ere sudden sunset fired the west,
Arose two stars upon the pale deep east.
The hall of heaven was clear for night’s
high feast,
Yet was not yet day’s fiery heart at rest.
Love leapt up from his mother’s burning breast
To see those warm twin lights, as day
decreased,
Wax wider, till when all the sun had ceased
As suns they shone from evening’s kindled crest.
Across them and between, a quickening fire,
Flamed Venus, laughing with appeased desire.
Their dawn, scarce lovelier for the gleam
of tears,
Filled half the hollow shell ’twixt heaven and
earth
With sound like moonlight, mingling moan and mirth,
Which rings and glitters down the darkling
years.
PHILIP MASSINGER
Clouds here and there arisen an hour past noon
Chequered our English heaven with lengthening
bars
And shadow and sound of wheel-winged thunder-cars
Assembling strength to put forth tempest soon,
When the clear still warm concord of thy tune
Rose under skies unscared by reddening
Mars
Yet, like a sound of silver speech of
stars,
With full mild flame as of the mellowing moon.
Grave and great-hearted Massinger, thy face
High melancholy lights with loftier grace
Than gilds the brows of revel: sad
and wise,
The spirit of thought that moved thy deeper song,
Sorrow serene in soft calm scorn of wrong,
Speaks patience yet from thy majestic
eyes.
JOHN FORD
Hew hard the marble from the mountain’s heart
Where hardest night holds fast in iron
gloom
Gems brighter than an April dawn in bloom,
That his Memnonian likeness thence may start
Revealed, whose hand with high funereal art
Carved night, and chiselled shadow:
be the tomb
That speaks him famous graven with signs
of doom
Intrenched inevitably in lines athwart,
As on some thunder-blasted Titan’s brow
His record of rebellion. Not the
day
Shall strike forth music from
so stern a chord,
Touching this marble: darkness, none knows how,
And stars impenetrable of midnight, may.
So looms the likeness of thy
soul, John Ford.
JOHN WEBSTER
Thunder: the flesh quails, and the soul bows
down.
Night: east, west, south, and northward,
very night.
Star upon struggling star strives into
sight,
Star after shuddering star the deep storms drown.
The very throne of night, her very crown,
A man lays hand on, and usurps her right.
Song from the highest of heaven’s
imperious height
Shoots, as a fire to smite some towering town.
Rage, anguish, harrowing fear, heart-crazing crime,
Make monstrous all the murderous face of Time
Shown in the spheral orbit of a glass
Revolving. Earth cries out from all her graves.
Frail, on frail rafts, across wide-wallowing waves,
Shapes here and there of child and mother
pass.
THOMAS DECKER
Out of the depths of darkling life where sin
Laughs piteously that sorrow should not
know
Her own ill name, nor woe be counted woe;
Where hate and craft and lust make drearier din
Than sounds through dreams that grief holds revel
in;
What charm of joy-bells ringing, streams
that flow,
Winds that blow healing in each note they
blow,
Is this that the outer darkness hears begin?
O sweetest heart of all thy time save one,
Star seen for love’s sake nearest to the sun,
Hung lamplike o’er a dense and doleful
city,
Not Shakespeare’s very spirit, howe’er
more great,
Than thine toward man was more compassionate,
Nor gave Christ praise from lips more
sweet with pity.
THOMAS MIDDLETON
A wild moon riding high from cloud to cloud,
That sees and sees not, glimmering far
beneath,
Hell’s children revel along the
shuddering heath
With dirge-like mirth and raiment like a shroud:
A worse fair face than witchcraft’s, passion-proud,
With brows blood-flecked behind their
bridal wreath
And lips that bade the assassin’s
sword find sheath
Deep in the heart whereto love’s heart was vowed:
A game of close contentious crafts and creeds
Played till white England bring black
Spain to shame:
A son’s bright sword and brighter soul, whose
deeds
High conscience lights for mother’s
love and fame:
Pure gipsy flowers, and poisonous courtly weeds:
Such tokens and such trophies crown thy
name.
THOMAS HEYWOOD
Tom, if they loved thee best who called thee Tom,
What else may all men call thee, seeing
thus bright
Even yet the laughing and the weeping
light
That still thy kind old eyes are kindled from?
Small care was thine to assail and overcome
Time and his child Oblivion: yet
of right
Thy name has part with names of lordlier
might
For English love and homely sense of home,
Whose fragrance keeps thy small sweet bayleaf young
GEORGE CHAPMAN
High priest of Homer, not elect in vain,
Deep trumpets blow before thee, shawms
behind
Mix music with the rolling wheels that
wind
Slow through the labouring triumph of thy train:
Fierce history, molten in thy forging brain,
Takes form and fire and fashion from thy
mind,
Tormented and transmuted out of kind:
But howsoe’er thou shift thy strenuous strain,
Like Tailor[1] smooth, like Fisher[2] swollen, and
now
Grim Yarrington[3] scarce bloodier marked
than thou,
Then bluff as Mayne’s[4] or broad-mouthed
Barry’s[5] glee;
Proud still with hoar predominance of brow
And beard like foam swept off the broad
blown sea,
Where’er thou go, men’s reverence
goes with thee.
[1] Author of The Hog hath lost his Pearl.
[2] Author of Fuimus Troes, or the True Trojans.
[3] Author of Two Tragedies in One.
[4] Author of The City Match.
[5] Author of Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks.
JOHN MARSTON
The bitterness of death and bitterer scorn
Breathes from the broad-leafed aloe-plant
whence thou
Wast fain to gather for thy bended brow
A chaplet by no gentler forehead worn.
Grief deep as hell, wrath hardly to be borne,
Ploughed up thy soul till round the furrowing
plough
The strange black soil foamed, as a black
beaked prow
Bids night-black waves foam where its track has torn.
Too faint the phrase for thee that only saith
Scorn bitterer than the bitterness of death
Pervades the sullen splendour of thy soul,
Where hate and pain make war on force and fraud
And all the strengths of tyrants; whence unflawed
It keeps this noble heart of hatred whole.
JOHN DAY
Day was a full-blown flower in heaven, alive
With murmuring joy of bees and birds aswarm,
When in the skies of song yet flushed
and warm
With music where all passion seems to strive
For utterance, all things bright and fierce to drive
Struggling along the splendour of the
storm,
Day for an hour put off his fiery form,
And golden murmurs from a golden hive
Across the strong bright summer wind were heard,
And laughter soft as smiles from girls
at play
And loud from lips of boys brow-bound
with May
Our mightiest age let fall its gentlest word,
When Song, in semblance of a sweet small bird,
Lit fluttering on the light swift hand
of Day.
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.
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?
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.
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:
[1] Doctor Dodypol.
[2] Nobody and Somebody.
ANONYMOUS PLAYS
More yet and more, and yet we mark not all:
The Warning fain to bid fair women heed
Its hard brief note of deadly doom and
deed;[1]
The verse that strewed too thick with flowers the
hall
Whence Nero watched his fiery festival;[2]
That iron page wherein men’s eyes
who read
See, bruised and marred between two babes
that bleed,
A mad red-handed husband’s martyr fall;[3]
The scene which crossed and streaked with mirth the
strife
Of Henry with his sons and witchlike wife;[4]
And that sweet pageant of the kindly fiend,
Who, seeing three friends in spirit and
heart made one,
Crowned with good hap the true-love wiles he screened
In the pleached lanes of pleasant Edmonton.[5]
[1] A Warning for Fair Women.
[2] The Tragedy of Nero.
[3] A Yorkshire Tragedy.
[4] Look about you.
[5] The Merry Devil of Edmonton.
THE MANY
Greene, garlanded with February’s few flowers,
Ere March came in with Marlowe’s
rapturous rage:
Peele, from whose hand the sweet white
locks of age
Took the mild chaplet woven of honoured hours:
Nash, laughing hard: Lodge, flushed from lyric
bowers:
And Lilly, a goldfinch in a twisted cage
Fed by some gay great lady’s pettish
page
Till short sweet songs gush clear like short spring
showers:
Kid, whose grim sport still gambolled over graves:
And Chettle, in whose fresh funereal verse
Weeps Marian yet on Robin’s wildwood
hearse:
Cooke, whose light boat of song one soft breath saves,
Sighed from a maiden’s amorous mouth
averse:
Live likewise ye: Time takes not you for slaves.
THE MANY
Haughton, whose mirth gave woman all her will:
Field, bright and loud with laughing flower
and bird
And keen alternate notes of laud and gird:
Barnes, darkening once with Borgia’s deeds the
quill
Which tuned the passion of Parthenophil:
Blithe burly Porter, broad and bold of
word:
Wilkins, a voice with strenuous pity stirred:
Turk Mason: Brewer, whose tongue drops honey
still:
Rough Rowley, handling song with Esau’s hand:
Light Nabbes: lean Sharpham, rank
and raw by turns,
But fragrant with a forethought once of
Burns:
Soft Davenport, sad-robed, but blithe and bland:
Brome, gipsy-led across the woodland ferns:
Praise be with all, and place among our band.
Our mother, which wast twice, as history saith,
Found first among the nations: once,
when she
Who bore thine ensign saw the God in thee
Smite Spain, and bring forth Shakespeare: once,
when death
Shrank, and Rome’s bloodhounds cowered, at Milton’s
breath:
More than thy place, then first among
the free
More than that sovereign lordship of the
sea
Bequeathed to Cromwell from Elizabeth,
More than thy fiery guiding-star, which Drake
Hailed, and the deep saw lit again for Blake,
More than all deeds wrought of thy strong
right hand,
This praise keeps most thy fame’s memorial strong
That thou wast head of all these streams of song,
And time bows down to thee as Shakespeare’s
land.