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

of loving-kindness light.?Duty divine and Thought with eyes of fire?Still following Righteousness with deep desire?Shone sole and stern before her and above,?Sure 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