And gives it place aloft among thy peers
    Whence many a wreath once higher strong Time has hurled: 
And this thy praise is sweet on Shakespeare’s tongue—­
  “O good old man, how well in thee appears
    The constant service of the antique world!”

XI

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.

XII

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.

XIII

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.