University of Virginia Library

WARD'S SHAKESPEARE.

(On first seeing, in Central Park, the statue of Shakespeare, by Ward.)

On an early autumn day,
With sunny shadows bright,
Warmed was I in a new ray,
Awed by the sudden might
Of a great presence, as I stood,
Flushed into fullest mood,
Before the mightiness
Of Shakespeare, springing
From beamy shaft, and bringing
Deep admiration's joy, to bless
The thankful gazer's eye
With his dear majesty.
In a hushed gladness,
In love and tender sadness,
We looked, almost with reverence bent,
As there his image sprang,
In beautiful embodiment,
From a fit pedestal,
As though the Muses nine, all musical,
At its creation's feat together sang
When it uprose into the air,
A living form of strength and grace,
Crowned with that thoughtful face,
And holy head so fair,
Vaulted and swol'n by tides of urgent deeps
From earth and heaven and man,
Itself a central depth, wherein there leaps
A life that can
Feed hungering humanity;
Men, women, children, grouped to see
Each other kindled (part unconsciously)
By this refulgent effigy
Of a perennial splendor;
Nature a brimful lender
Of glory and of light,
To consecrate a power, a delight,
A triumph aye to feeling, thought, and sense,
A boon given by heavenly art,
Through sympathy of heart,
And made to bloom in ever-fresh magnificence.