 | Poems by Hartley Coleridge |  |
319
SHAKESPEARE.
Shakespeare, what art thou? Could'st thou rise againTo praise thyself, thy praise were old and vain;
Thy highest flight would sink beneath thy due;
Thy own invention would find nothing new.
In the whole orb of nature that thou art,
Complete in essence, and distinct in part;
No theme, no topic, and no simile,
But busy men have stolen in praise of thee.
Then let thy cumbrous crities keep their shelves;
We find thy truest comment in ourselves.
In thee our thoughts find utterance, and combine
Their airy substance with those thoughts of thine.
By thee our feelings all are judged, acquitted,
Reproved, condemn'd, with seemly action fitted.
What chance, or change, affection, or the faith
Of hope and fear, the benison or scathe
Of Fortune infinite can make of man,—
What man has been since first the world began,
320
One great adventure for succeeding brains;
The golden branch upon the mystic tree,
Unpluck'd, to show—man as he ought to be.
| Poems by Hartley Coleridge | |