 | Uncollected Poems of James Russell Lowell |  |
VERSES WRITTEN IN A COPY OF SHAKSPEARE
Here Music fledges thought as leaves the pine
Whose strong stem lightward lifts those minstrels fine,
And in this symphony no voice is mute
Of kindling trump or meditative flute,
For 't is the high prerogative of song
To nerve the weak and mitigate the strong:
Here passion is sublimed until its throes,
Seen in reflection, feed the mind's repose;
Here life is shown as only he could see
Who found in Man the World's epitome
And knew the pygmy-giant, idiot-sage,
The same in every clime and every age,
While, as the motley throng goes by, we scan
Mask after mask to find beneath the man,
Matchless in all, the circuit of whose soul
Girt human nature round from pole to pole.
Here is Truth's well, and this its constant law,
That still and still it deepens as we draw;
Bring larger vessels, larger yet, and more;
Fill them to running-over; still there's store;
Get all experience, and at last it is
But as a key to part decypher his;
Observe, think, morals draw, part false from true,
He did all long ago, and better too;
Go, seek of Thought some yet unsullied strand,
His footprint there confronts you as you land;
What need for help on many words to call?
When I say Shakspeare, I have said it all.
Whose strong stem lightward lifts those minstrels fine,
And in this symphony no voice is mute
Of kindling trump or meditative flute,
For 't is the high prerogative of song
To nerve the weak and mitigate the strong:
Here passion is sublimed until its throes,
Seen in reflection, feed the mind's repose;
Here life is shown as only he could see
Who found in Man the World's epitome
And knew the pygmy-giant, idiot-sage,
The same in every clime and every age,
While, as the motley throng goes by, we scan
Mask after mask to find beneath the man,
Matchless in all, the circuit of whose soul
Girt human nature round from pole to pole.
Here is Truth's well, and this its constant law,
That still and still it deepens as we draw;
Bring larger vessels, larger yet, and more;
Fill them to running-over; still there's store;
Get all experience, and at last it is
But as a key to part decypher his;
Observe, think, morals draw, part false from true,
He did all long ago, and better too;
163
His footprint there confronts you as you land;
What need for help on many words to call?
When I say Shakspeare, I have said it all.
“My Shakspeare” Milton called him, echoing Ben;
“My Shakspeare” he to all the sons of men;
'T is the world's common field and each man's share
To just what treasure he first buried there,
And he shall bring mere fairy-gold away
Who finds here but the matter of a play.
Those inbred fates that shadow, under wings
With lightnings seamed, the stormy fates of kings,
Measure to us as to ourselves we mete,
Drag us before the unerring judgment-seat,
Sow in our passions the same seeds of death
As in Othello, Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth,
And fairy vanities our fortunes mix,
Play with our baffled sense the selfsame tricks
As Ariel did, or, like sly Puck deride,
With ears all see but us, the brains inside.
“My Shakspeare” he to all the sons of men;
'T is the world's common field and each man's share
To just what treasure he first buried there,
And he shall bring mere fairy-gold away
Who finds here but the matter of a play.
Those inbred fates that shadow, under wings
With lightnings seamed, the stormy fates of kings,
Measure to us as to ourselves we mete,
Drag us before the unerring judgment-seat,
Sow in our passions the same seeds of death
As in Othello, Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth,
And fairy vanities our fortunes mix,
Play with our baffled sense the selfsame tricks
As Ariel did, or, like sly Puck deride,
With ears all see but us, the brains inside.
| Uncollected Poems of James Russell Lowell | |