University of Virginia Library

THE SHADOWS OF SHAKESPEARE:

A MONODY, IN IRREGULAR VERSE, Occasioned by the DEATH of Mr. GARRICK.

I.

Soon as the breath of Rumour blew
This solemn theme into the general ear,
To holy Solitude I flew,
And bade the Muse her sympathy prepare!
There closeted with Thought,
The brain its shapeless travail wrought!
The season to the subject solemnly did suit:
Day's dazzling orb was wholly down:
Pale Cynthia sat upon her silver throne;
Th' obtrusions of the light were clos'd
It seem'd, as Silence self repos'd,
For with the Air, the Earth and all her sons were mute:
All but the wretched, who, like me,
The gentle vigils kept of sympathy.
With cordial awe I liailed the shading night,
And kiss'd her dusky-robe which muffled thus the night.

II.

Base busy world, begone, begone, I said,
To mighty Garrick yield the serious mind,
This awful Now be sacred to the dead,
And turn the cautious key on human kind.

III.

The dead—ah, me!—what dead?—Here it began
The florid Poet felt himself a Man.
And is he dead, whose wonder-working art
So often tone, and touch'd, and tun'd the heart?
Whose piercing eye intelligence could give,
And bid long-buried beings look and live?
Whose voice enrich'd the verse his Shakespeare writ,
And gave to every word its weight of wit;
No sentence blemish'd, marr'd no golden line,
But polish'd, as he drew it from the mine;
Whose tongue grew wanton in his Shakespeare's cause,
And gave to crowded Theatres their laws;
Whose powerful accents, soften'd or sublime,
Free from all frippery, false pause, false chime,
Chain'd, as to th' attracting centre, every ear;
And, all commanding, sway'd the smile and tear:
Is it to Him the Muse must pay
Her tributary lay?
For him, must aching Memory pour the strain,
Must she her honour'd Garrick's loss complain?

IV.

The heart was hurt—It could no more—
Along each finer nerve swift shot the misery,
Even Nature shed her pensive shower;
The mighty Mother wept, alas! with me:
Th' imperial Goddess mourn'd her own decay,
(Mix'd universal with our human clay)
And wish'd she could a second birth bestow
On this her Representative below.
But, ah! it might not be,
So the rich debt was paid, to poor Humanity.

V.

Then in the sable stole of woe,
All conscious of the blow,
Pale her cheek, her eye declining,
Half obedient, half repining;
Her visage mark'd by many a tear,
(Pour'd from the crystal source of grief sincere)
In awful state,
Unfortunate and great,
Melpomene came on,
Afflicted for her Son,
And thrice, methought, the Bowl she lifted high,
And thrice she threw on Heaven the pity-moving eye;
Then, like the statue of Despair,
Stood fix'd—her dagger pois'd in air.

VI.

Now 'twas Thalia first conceiv'd a pain,
'Twas now she echo'd back her sister's sighs again;
The jest, the laugh, the look, were o'er,
Her cunning was no more;
The comic mirth, the comic pride,
Her wit, her whim, with Garrick dy'd;
Disdainful then the mask she flung
To vacant air—and thus forlorn she sung:
And ah! away with random rhyme,
Tinsel ill-suited to the time;
Away with leisure's coxcomb line,
The couplet quaint, the stanza fine;
Far from our verse be now the pun, the point,
The period measur'd joint by joint;
Th' elaborate trade of poesy forbear—
O rather paint the workings of despair;
Scorn the vain edging sable Verse assumes,
And let dark Elegy pass on, in all her pompous plumes.
The honour of the Dead in view,
A juster path will we pursue;
Shakespeare himself, who best our state can feel,
Shall the sad tale in his own language tell.

VII.

Th' inspiring Goddess, mortals Fancy name,
With all her magic arm'd, now near me came
Her waving wand, deep midnight deeper made,
With her I went—to where our Garrick laid.
Cynthia lent a feeble ray,
To light us on our way!
Fancy with printless footsteps trod,
As if advancing towards a God!
Methought we easy entrance found,
And the drear Abbey walk'd around.
How fearful thus, ye Heavens! to tread,
The dampsome vaults which close the dead!

VIII.

But soft—
As at the foot of mighty Shakespeare's tomb
I kneel—sudden along the fretted ailes
Innumerous shady forms, by the pale moon's
Imperfect beam beheld,—in various guise—
(Each in the habit worn in days of Nature)
Appear, and pour their potent spells upon me!
Aw'd by a sight so strange, aloft I stood,
And wist not what to do:—the figures mov'd!
On near approach I knew them for the Train
Of Shakespeare: Then in procession sad,
Strait, one by one, his hallow'd homage paid
O'er Garrick's grave all bending.

IX.

Ariel first,
(Not sight-deceiving, as her custom was,
When in the bowels of the earth she div'd;
“Or mounted on the sharp wind of the North,
“Or on the curling clouds, or sunny ray,
“Nor like a spirit at ease”) but with step
Deliberate—She, and her fellow-ministers,
(“Brimful of sorrow and dismay”) stood mute,
Then gaz'd upon the grave—then sunk in sighs.

X.

XI.

He said, and paus'd.
The weir'd Sisters then, hag-born and horrid,
Mutter'd their melancholy homage hoarse;
Cold distillations of distress extreme
Fell down the furrows of each wint'ry cheek:
Thrice pac'd they piteous round the hallow'd earth,
Acknowledging their Lord. To Garrick's grave
Bow'd every swarthy She.—To end their rites,
Imagination's owl flapp'd her fell wing,
And, wailing, shriek'd as 'cross the dome she flew:
Sudden, the whirring wizards disappear,
And horse themselves upon the viewless winds.

XII.

The gentle Romeo was the third which came;
And oh! he said,—“Turn back dull Earth—ah, me!
“Can I go forward when my friend is here?
“It is even so—Then I defy you stars!
“Romeo shall never more be Romeo now
“His occupation's gone.”—

XIII.

XIV.

The fifth sad spirit that stalk'd by was Lear's,
Mad as the vext sea still; and singing oft;
Crown'd, as of old, by Shakespeare's hand; with fumiter,
With hardocks, hemlocks, nettles, cuckoo flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In the sustaining corn—
At sight of Garrick's tomb his wounds again
Bleed fresh. Tottering he mov'd; his words were wild:
“You do me wrong to call me out o'th' grave!
“And yet I know thee, Man!—Heav'n has thee now!
“Thou wer't Lear's friend.—In faith I do remember.—
“Yes, we were both as stout a pair:—but why
“This truant disposition? Is the greatest man
“So poor and forked an animal in death?—
“Off, off, you lendings, come unbotton here—Poor shade!
“No more of that, no more of that.—

XV.

The figure next succeeding was the Thane's,
Languid and penitent.—His hand he wav'd
As 'twere in honour of the man, whose voice
Did blow his base design in every ear:
Malice was dead within him, and he wept;
Then striking thrice his bosom, thus he cried:
“Oh Nature! how thyself thou blazon'dst
“In this thy Son; form'd in thy prodigality
“To hold thy mirror up, and give the time
“Its very form and pressure:—when he spoke
“Each aged ear play'd truant at his tales,
“And younger hearers were quite ravish'd;
“So voluble was his discourse.—Yet, being dead,
“I am a man again!”—He rush'd along.

XVI.

The gallant Anthony then onward strode
And paus'd—as 'erst o'er Cæsar's corse:—then spake:
“Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
“That ever liv'd in the tide of Time!
“Here was an Actor—when comes such another?

XVII.

XVIII.

And now, the melancholy Jaques advanc'd,
And, full of matter, thus in few, exclaim'd:
“Why all the World's a stage,
“And all the Men and Women merely players:
“They have their exits and their entrances;
“And this Man, in his time, play'd many parts.
“Life! No more on't; it is a tale, told
“By an idiot, signifying nothing.”

XIX.

At last, with philosophic step,
Swift-streaming eye, and arms entwined close,
The sacred shade of his own Hamlet came:
Long time he paus'd—long time around he look'd,
Then fix'd his view upon the grave, and spoke:
“'Tis not now, seems; in verity, it is;
“Oh, what a grace was seated on that brow!
“An eye, like Mars, to threaten or command;
“A combination and a form indeed,
“Where every God did seem to set his seal,
“To give the world assurance of a Man!
“And is it come to this?—but hush, my heart!
“He was a Man, take him for all in all,
“We may not look upon his like again.”

XX.

While wrapt in wonder of these various shews
The sovereign shade of Shakespeare awful rose,
His many-colour'd wand he wav'd,
And soon the mournful train again were grav'd.
(Now was His genius even more divine,)
And all alone he stood before his Garrick's shrine.
Rest, rest, perturbed spirits, then, he said,
To me belongs th' inestimable dead;
To each 'tis given to breathe, to fall;
'Tis the fix'd lot of all that soar or crawl.
For Thee, much honour'd friend,
What glories mark'd thy end!
Applauding nations own thy fame,
And, blend their Garrick's, with their Shakespeare's name:
Together then we mount on high,
'Tis our's to triumph, 'tis the World's to sigh.