Shakespeare (Stratford-on-Avon) THOU CHOU soft-flowing Avon, by thy silver stream Of things more than mortal sweet Shakespeare would dream, The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, For hallowed the turf is which pillowed his head. The love-stricken maiden, the soft-sighing swain, Here rove without danger, and sigh without pain; The sweet bud of beauty no blight here shall dread, For hallowed the turf is which pillowed his head. Here youth shall be famed for their love and their truth, And cheerful old age feel the spirit of youth; For the raptures of fancy here poets shall tread, For hallowed the turf is that pillowed his head. Flow on, silver Avon, in song ever flow! Be the swans on thy borders still whiter than snow! Ever full be thy stream, like his fame may it spread! And the turf ever hallowed which pillowed his head. David Garrick. An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet, W. Shakespeare (Stratford-on-Avon) WHAT needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones, The Labor of an age in pilèd stones? Or that his hallowed relics should be hid Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, Hast built thyself a livelong monument. For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavoring art Guilielmus Rex (Stratford-on-Avon) HE folk who lived in Shakespeare's day By London Bridge, his frequent way- The pointed beard, the courteous mien, The doublet's modest gray or brown, Yet 'twas the king of England's kings! Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Within King's College Chapel, Cambridge (Cambridge) TAX AX not the royal saint with vain expense, With ill-match'd aims the Architect who plann'd (Albeit laboring for a scanty band Of white-robed Scholars only) this immense Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or more: So deem'd the man who fashion'd for the sense These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof Self-poised, and scoop'd into ten thousand cells Where light and shade repose, where music dwells Lingering and wandering on as loath to die; Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality. William Wordsworth. Canute (Ely) A PLEASANT music floats along the mere, From monks in Ely chanting service high, While as Canute the king is rowing by. "My oarsmen," quoth the mighty king, "draw near, That we the sweet song of the monks may hear." Gives to that rapture an accordant rhyme. O suffering Earth! be thankful; sternest clime And rudest age are subject to the thrill Of heaven-descended piety and song. William Wordsworth. Elegy written in a Country Churchyard (Stoke Pogis) HE curfew tolls the knell of parting day, THE The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care: |