Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) | Page 9

eyes to mark,?Though changed the watchword of our English camp?Since the outposts rang round Marlowe's lion ramp,?When thy steed's pace went ambling round Hyde Park.
And in the thickening twilight under thee?Walks Davenant, pensive in the paths where he,?The blithest throat that ever carolled love?In music made of morning's merriest heart,?Glad Suckling, stumbled from his seat above?And reeled on slippery roads of alien art.
XV
THE TRIBE OF BENJAMIN
Sons born of many a loyal Muse to Ben,?All true-begotten, warm with wine or ale,?Bright from the broad light of its presence, hail!?Prince Randolph, nighest his throne of all his men,?Being highest in spirit and heart who hailed him then?King, nor might other spread so blithe a sail:?Cartwright, a soul pent in with narrower pale,?Praised of thy sire for manful might of pen:?Marmion, whose verse keeps alway keen and fine?The perfume of their Apollonian wine?Who shared with that stout sire of all and thee?The exuberant chalice of his echoing shrine:?Is not your praise writ broad in gold which he?Inscribed, that all who praise his name should see?
XVI
ANONYMOUS PLAYS:
"ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM"
Mother whose womb brought forth our man of men,?Mother of Shakespeare, whom all time acclaims?Queen therefore, sovereign queen of English dames,?Throned higher than sat thy sonless empress then,?Was it thy son's young passion-guided pen?Which drew, reflected from encircling flames,?A figure marked by the earlier of thy names?Wife, and from all her wedded kinswomen?Marked by the sign of murderess? Pale and great,?Great in her grief and sin, but in her death?And anguish of her penitential breath?Greater than all her sin or sin-born fate,?She stands, the holocaust of dark desire,?Clothed round with song for ever as with fire.
XVII
ANONYMOUS PLAYS
Ye too, dim watchfires of some darkling hour,?Whose fame forlorn time saves not nor proclaims?For ever, but forgetfulness defames?And darkness and the shadow of death devour,?Lift up ye too your light, put forth your power,?Let the far twilight feel your soft small flames?And smile, albeit night name not even their names,?Ghost by ghost passing, flower blown down on flower:?That sweet-tongued shadow, like a star's that passed?Singing, and light was from its darkness cast?To paint the face of Painting fair with praise:[1]?And that wherein forefigured smiles the pure?Fraternal face of Wordsworth's Elidure?Between two child-faced masks of merrier days.[2]
[1] Doctor Dodypol.
[2] Nobody and Somebody.
XVIII
ANONYMOUS PLAYS
More yet and more, and yet we mark not all:?The Warning fain to bid fair women heed?Its hard brief note of deadly doom and deed;[1]?The verse that strewed too thick with flowers the hall?Whence Nero watched his fiery festival;[2]?That iron page wherein men's eyes who read?See, bruised and marred between two babes that bleed,?A mad red-handed husband's martyr fall;[3]?The scene which crossed and streaked with mirth the strife?Of Henry with his sons and witchlike wife;[4]?And that sweet pageant of the kindly fiend,?Who, seeing three friends in spirit and heart made one,?Crowned with good hap the true-love wiles he screened?In the pleached lanes of pleasant Edmonton.[5]
[1] A Warning for Fair Women.
[2] The Tragedy of Nero.
[3] A Yorkshire Tragedy.
[4] Look about you.
[5] The Merry Devil of Edmonton.
XIX
THE MANY
I
Greene, garlanded with February's few flowers,?Ere March came in with Marlowe's rapturous rage:?Peele, from whose hand the sweet white locks of age?Took the mild chaplet woven of honoured hours:?Nash, laughing hard: Lodge, flushed from lyric bowers:?And Lilly, a goldfinch in a twisted cage?Fed by some gay great lady's pettish page?Till short sweet songs gush clear like short spring showers: Kid, whose grim sport still gambolled over graves:?And Chettle, in whose fresh funereal verse?Weeps Marian yet on Robin's wildwood hearse:?Cooke, whose light boat of song one soft breath saves,?Sighed from a maiden's amorous mouth averse:?Live likewise ye: Time takes not you for slaves.
XX
THE MANY
II
Haughton, whose mirth gave woman all her will:?Field, bright and loud with laughing flower and bird?And keen alternate notes of laud and gird:?Barnes, darkening once with Borgia's deeds the quill?Which tuned the passion of Parthenophil:?Blithe burly Porter, broad and bold of word:?Wilkins, a voice with strenuous pity stirred:?Turk Mason: Brewer, whose tongue drops honey still:?Rough Rowley, handling song with Esau's hand:?Light Nabbes: lean Sharpham, rank and raw by turns,?But fragrant with a forethought once of Burns:?Soft Davenport, sad-robed, but blithe and bland:?Brome, gipsy-led across the woodland ferns:?Praise be with all, and place among our band.
XXI
EPILOGUE
Our mother, which wast twice, as history saith,?Found first among the nations: once, when she?Who bore thine ensign saw the God in thee?Smite Spain, and bring forth Shakespeare: once, when death?Shrank, and Rome's bloodhounds cowered, at Milton's breath: More than thy place, then first among the free?More than that sovereign lordship of the sea?Bequeathed to Cromwell from Elizabeth,?More than thy fiery guiding-star, which Drake?Hailed, and the deep saw lit again for Blake,?More than all deeds wrought of thy strong right hand,?This praise keeps most thy fame's memorial strong?That thou wast head of all these streams of song,?And time bows down to thee as Shakespeare's land.
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