O THOU who standest 'mid the bards of old,
Like Chimborazo, when the setting sun
Has left his hundred mountains dark and dun,
Sole object visible, the imperial One,
In purple robe, and diadem of gold, —
Immortal Shakspeare! who can hope to tell,
With tongue less gifted, of the pleasing sadness
Wrought in thy deepest scenes of woe and madness?
Who hope by words to paint the ecstatic gladness
Of spirits leaping 'mid thy merry spell?
When I have gazed upon thy wondrous page,
And seen, as in some necromantic glass,
Thy visionary forms before me pass,
Like breathing things of every living class,
Goblin and Hero, Villain, Fool, and Sage,
It seemed a task not Buonarroti's e'en,
Nor Raffael's hand could master by their art,
To give the semblance of the meanest part
Of all thy vast creation, or the heart
Touch as thou touchest with a kindred scene.
And vainer still, methought, by mimic tone,
And feigned look, and attitude, and air,
The Actor's toil; for self will have its share
With nicest mimicry, and, though it spare
To others largely, gives not all its own.
So did I deem, till, living to my view,
Scorning his country while he sought her good,
In Kemble forth the unbending Roman* stood;
Till, snuffing at the scent of human blood,
In Cooke strode forth the unrelenting Jew.†
But these were beings tangible in vice,
Their purpose searchable, their every thought
Indexed in living men; yet only sought,
Plain as they seem, by genius, — only bought
By genius even with laborious price.
But who, methought, in confidence so brave,
Doffing himself, shall dare that form assume
So strangely mixed of wisdom, wit, and gloom, ——
Playful in misery even at the tomb,-
Of hope, distrust, of faith and doubt, the slave?
That being strange, that only in the brain
Perchance has lived, yet still so rarely knit
In all its parts, its wisdom to its wit,
And doubt to faith, loathing to love, so fit,It seems like one that lived, and lives again! Who, then, dare wear the princely Denmark's form? What starts before me? Ha! 't is he I've seen Oft in a day-dream, when my youth was green, The Dane himself, - the Dane! Who says 't is Kean? Yet sure it moves, as if its blood were warm.
If this be Kean, then Hamlet lived indeed!
Look! how his purpose hurries him apace,
Seeking a fitful rest from place to place!
And yet his trouble fits him with a grace,
As if his heart did love what makes it bleed.
He seems to move as in a world ideal,
A world of thought, where wishes have their end
In wishing merely, where resolves but spend
Themselves resolving, -as his will did lend
Not counsel e'en his body to defend.
Or Kean or Hamlet,-what I see is real!
How vast a world is figured by a word!
A little word, a very point of sound,
Breathed by a breath, and in an instant heard;
Yet leaving that may well the soul astound,
To sense a shape, to thought without a bound.
For who shall hope the mystery to scan
Of that dark being symbolized in man?
His outward form seems but a speck in
But what far star shall check the eternal race
Of one small thought that rays from out his mind?
For evil, or for good, still, still must travel on
His every thought, though worlds are left behind,
Nor backward can the race be ever run.
How fearful, then, that the first evil ray,
Still red with Abel's blood, is on its way!
O, WHO hath lived the ills to know
Which make the sum of life below,
That hath not felt, if, 'mid the brood
Of half-wrought beings, hither sent
As if in promised punishment
Of vicious ancestry, there stood
A Form of purest symmetry,—
Where Nature seemed as she would try,
In spite of Vice, to keep on earth
Some vestige of primeval birth;-
Ah, who on such a form hath dwelt,
And hath not in his gazing felt
A sudden stream of horror rush
Back on his heart, to think how soon,
Ere yet perchance she reach her noon,
The Giant Sin may grinning crush
This living flower of Paradise, -
May send its fragrance, born to rise,
Downward, a hellish sacrifice!
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