The Poetical Works of Laman Blanchard :: :: University of Virginia Library

Like one who stands
On the bright verge of some enchanted shore,
Where notes from airy harps, and hidden hands,
Are, from the green grass and the golden sands,
Far echoed, o'er and o'er,
As if the trancèd listener to invite
Into that world of light;

Thus stood I here,
Musing awhile on these unblotted leaves,
Till the blank pages brighten'd, and mine ear
Found music in their rustling, sweet and clear,
And wreaths that Fancy weaves
Entwin'd the volume—fill'd with grateful lays
And songs of rapturous praise.

350

No sound I heard,
But echoed o'er and o'er our Shakespeare's name,
One lingering note of love, link'd word to word,
Till every leaf was as a fairy bird
Whose song is still the same:
Or each was as a flower, with folded cells
For Pucks and Ariels!

And visions grew—
Visions not brief, though bright, which frosted age
Hath fail'd to rob of one diviner hue,
Making them more familiar, yet more new—
These flash'd into the page;
A group of crownèd things—the radiant themes
Of Shakespeare's Avon dreams!

Of crownèd things—
(Rare crowns of living gems and lasting flowers)
Some in the human likeness, some with wings
Dyed in the beauty of ethereal springs—
Some shedding piteous showers
Of natural tears, and some in smiles that fell
Like sunshine on a dell.

Here Art had caught
The perfect mould of Hamlet's princely form,
The frantic Thane, fiend-cheated, lived, methought;
Here Timon howl'd: anon, sublimely wrought,
Stood Lear, amid the storm;
There Romeo droop'd, or soar'd—while Jacques here,
Still watched the weeping deer.

351

And then a throng
Of heavenly natures, clad in earthly vest,
Like angel-apparitions, pass'd along;
The rich-lipp'd Rosalind all light and song;
And Imogen's white breast:
Low-voiced Cordelia with her stifled sighs,
And Juliet's shrouded eyes.

The page, turn'd o'er,
Shew'd Kate—or Viola—my ‘Lady Tongue’—
The lost Venetian with her loving Moor;
The Maiden-wonder on the haunted shore,
Happy, and fair, and young:
Till on a poor, love-martyr'd mind I look—
Ophelia, at the brook.

With sweet Ann Page
The bright thing ended; for, untouch'd by time,
Came Falstaff, laughter-laurell'd, young in age,
With many a ripe and sack-devoted sage!
And deathless clowns sublime
Crowded the leaf, to vanish at a swoop,
Like Oberon and his troop.

Here sat, entranced,
Malvolio, leg—trapp'd:—he who served the Jew
Still with the fiend seem'd running;—then advanced
Messina's pretty piece of flesh, and danced
With Bottom and his crew;
Mercutio, Benedick, press'd points of wit,
And Osrick made his hit.

352

At these, e'er long,
Awoke my laughter, and the spell was past:
Of the gay multitude, a marvellous throng,
No trace is here,— no tints, no word, no song.
On these bare leaves are cast—
The altar has been rear'd, an offering fit—
The flame is still unlit.

Oh! who now bent
In humble reverence, hopes one wreath to bind
Worthy of him, whose genius, strangely blent,
Could kindle ‘wonder and astonishment’
In Milton's starry mind?
Who stood alone, but not as one apart,
And saw Man's inmost heart!

The following additional poems reached the Editor while the volume was passing through the press.