Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) | Page 5

stars and sole to steer
by; but more sweet
Shone lower the loveliest lamp for earthly feet,

The light of little children, and their love.
AFTER LOOKING INTO CARLYLE'S REMINISCENCES
I
Three men lived yet when this dead man was young
Whose names
and words endure for ever: one
Whose eyes grew dim with straining
toward the sun,
And his wings weakened, and his angel's tongue

Lost half the sweetest song was ever sung,
But like the strain half
uttered earth hears none,
Nor shall man hear till all men's songs are
done:
One whose clear spirit like an eagle hung
Between the
mountains hallowed by his love
And the sky stainless as his soul
above:
And one the sweetest heart that ever spake
The brightest
words wherein sweet wisdom smiled.
These deathless names by this
dead snake defiled
Bid memory spit upon him for their sake.
II
Sweet heart, forgive me for thine own sweet sake,
Whose kind blithe
soul such seas of sorrow swam,
And for my love's sake, powerless as

I am
For love to praise thee, or like thee to make
Music of mirth
where hearts less pure would break,
Less pure than thine, our
life-unspotted Lamb.
Things hatefullest thou hadst not heart to damn,

Nor wouldst have set thine heel on this dead snake.
Let worms
consume its memory with its tongue,
The fang that stabbed fair Truth,
the lip that stung
Men's memories uncorroded with its breath.

Forgive me, that with bitter words like his
I mix the gentlest English
name that is,
The tenderest held of all that know not death.
A LAST LOOK
Sick of self-love, Malvolio, like an owl
That hoots the sun rerisen
where starlight sank,
With German garters crossed athwart thy frank

Stout Scottish legs, men watched thee snarl and scowl,
And boys
responsive with reverberate howl
Shrilled, hearing how to thee the
springtime stank
And as thine own soul all the world smelt rank

And as thine own thoughts Liberty seemed foul.
Now, for all ill
thoughts nursed and ill words given
Not all condemned, not utterly
forgiven,
Son of the storm and darkness, pass in peace.
Peace upon
earth thou knewest not: now, being dead,
Rest, with nor curse nor
blessing on thine head,
Where high-strung hate and strenuous envy
cease.
DICKENS
Chief in thy generation born of men
Whom English praise acclaimed
as English-born,
With eyes that matched the worldwide eyes of morn

For gleam of tears or laughter, tenderest then
When thoughts of
children warmed their light, or when
Reverence of age with love and
labour worn,
Or godlike pity fired with godlike scorn,
Shot through
them flame that winged thy swift live pen:
Where stars and suns that
we behold not burn,
Higher even than here, though highest was here
thy place, Love sees thy spirit laugh and speak and shine
With
Shakespeare and the soft bright soul of Sterne
And Fielding's

kindliest might and Goldsmith's grace;
Scarce one more loved or
worthier love than thine.
ON LAMB'S SPECIMENS OF DRAMATIC POETS
I
If all the flowers of all the fields on earth
By wonder-working
summer were made one,
Its fragrance were not sweeter in the sun,

Its treasure-house of leaves were not more worth
Than those
wherefrom thy light of musing mirth
Shone, till each leaf whereon
thy pen would run
Breathed life, and all its breath was benison.

Beloved beyond all names of English birth,
More dear than mightier
memories; gentlest name
That ever clothed itself with flower-sweet
fame,
Or linked itself with loftiest names of old
By right and might
of loving; I, that am
Less than the least of those within thy fold,

Give only thanks for them to thee, Charles Lamb.
II
So many a year had borne its own bright bees
And slain them since
thy honey-bees were hived,
John Day, in cells of flower-sweet verse
contrived
So well with craft of moulding melodies,
Thy soul
perchance in amaranth fields at ease
Thought not to hear the sound on
earth revived
Of summer music from the spring derived
When thy
song sucked the flower of flowering trees.
But thine was not the
chance of every day:
Time, after many a darkling hour, grew sunny,

And light between the clouds ere sunset swam,
Laughing, and
kissed their darkness all away,
When, touched and tasted and
approved, thy honey
Took subtler sweetness from the lips of Lamb.
TO JOHN NICHOL
I

Friend of the dead, and friend of all my days
Even since they cast off
boyhood, I salute
The song saluting friends whose songs are mute

With full burnt-offerings of clear-spirited praise.
That since our old
young years our several ways
Have led through fields diverse of
flower and fruit,
Yet no cross wind has once relaxed the root
We set
long since beneath the sundawn's rays,
The root of trust whence
towered the trusty tree,
Friendship--this only and duly might impel

My song to salutation of your own;
More even than praise of one
unseen of me
And loved--the starry spirit of Dobell,
To mine by
light and music only known.
II
But more than this what moves me most of all
To leave not all
unworded and unsped
The whole heart's greeting of my thanks unsaid

Scarce needs this sign, that from my tongue should fall
His name
whom sorrow and reverent love recall,
The sign to