Sir Henry Irving

"Thou trumpet made for Shakespeare's lips to blow!"


No more for thee the music and the lights,
Thy magic may no more win smile nor frown;
For thee, 0 dear interpreter of dreams,
The curtain hath rung down.

No more the sea of faces, turned to thine,
Swayed by impassioned word and breathless pause;
No more the triumph of thine art - no more
The thunder of applause.

No more for thee the maddening, mystic bells,
The haunting horror - and the falling snow;
No more of Shylock's fury, and no more
The Prince of Denmark's woe.

Not once again the fret of heart and soul,
The loneliness and passion of King Lear;
No more bewilderment and broken words
Of wild despair and fear.

And never wilt thou conjure from the past
The dread and bitter field of Waterloo;
Thy trembling hands will never pluck again
Its roses or its rue.

Thou art no longer player to the court;
No longer red-robed cardinal or king;
To-day thou art thyself - the Well-Beloved -
Bereft of crown and ring.

Thy feet have found the path that Shakespeare found,
Life's lonely exit of such far renown;
For thee, 0 dear interpreter of dreams,
The curtain hath rung down.

October, 1905.

Virna Sheard

Virna Sheard was a Canadian poet and novelist associated with the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She gained recognition for her poetry collections such as 'The Miracle, and Other Poems' and 'A Sea of Sunset'. Her work often explored themes of love, spirituality, and the natural world. Apart from poetry, she also wrote several novels that contributed significantly to Canadian literature of her time.

Virna Sheard

Paeans

Virna Sheard, Simple Poetry

Heaven

Virna Sheard, Simple Poetry

The Opal Month

Virna Sheard, Simple Poetry

Saints

Virna Sheard, Simple Poetry

English

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At The Play

Just above the boxes and where the high lights fall
Looketh down a carven face from out the gilded wall.

Van Dyke beard and broidered ruff silently confess
That he lived - and loved perchance - in days of Good Queen Bess.
(Laces fine and linen sheer, curled and perfumed hair
Well became those gentlemen of gay, insouciant air.)

See! He gazeth evermore at the stage below;
Noteth well the players as they quickly come and go;
Queens and kings and maidens fair, motley fools and friars,
Lords and ladies, stately dames, mounted knights and squires.

Well he knoweth all of them, all the grave and gay,
These are they he dreamt of in the far and far away;
Saints and sinners, see they come down the bygone years,
And the world still shares with them its laughter and its...

Virna Sheard

A Performance Of Henry V At Stratford-Upon-Avon

Nature teaches us our tongue again
And the swift sentences came pat. I came
Into cool night rescued from rainy dawn.
And I seethed with language, Henry at
Harfleur and Agincourt came apt for war
In Ireland and the Middle East. Here was
The riddling and right tongue, the feeling words
Solid and dutiful. Aspiring hope
Met purpose in "advantages" and "He
That fights with me today shall be my brother."
Say this is patriotic, out of date.
But you are wrong. It never is too late

For nights of stars and feet that move to an
Iambic measure; all who clapped were linked,
The theatre is our treasury and too,
Our study, school-room, house where mercy is

Dispensed with justice. Shakespeare has the mood
And draws the music from the dullest heart.
This ...

Elizabeth Jennings

Shakspeare

    O sovereign Master! who with lonely state
    Dost rule as in some isle's enchanted land,
    On whom soft airs and shadowy spirits wait,
    Whilst scenes of "faerie" bloom at thy command,
    On thy wild shores forgetful could I lie,
    And list, till earth dissolved to thy sweet minstrelsy!

    Called by thy magic from the hoary deep,
    Aërial forms should in bright troops ascend,
    And then a wondrous masque before me sweep;
    Whilst sounds, that the earth owned not, seem to blend
    Their stealing melodies, that when the strain
    Ceased, I should weep, and would so dream again!

    The song hath ceased. Ah! who, pale shade, art thou,
    Sad raving to the rude tempestuous night!
    Sure thou hast had much wrong, so stern thy...

William Lisle Bowles

The Afterglow of Shakespeare

Let there be light, said Time: and England heard:
And manhood grew to godhead at the word.
No light had shone, since earth arose from sleep,
So far; no fire of thought had cloven so deep.
A day beyond all days bade life acclaim
Shakespeare: and man put on his crowning name.
All secrets once through darkling ages kept
Shone, sang, and smiled to think how long they slept.
Man rose past fear of lies whereon he trod:
And Dante's ghost saw hell devour his God.
Bright Marlowe, brave as winds that brave the sea
When sundawn bids their bliss in battle be,
Lit England first along the ways whereon
Song brighter far than sunlight soared and shone.
He died ere half his life had earned his right
To lighten time with song's triumphant light.
Hope shrank, and felt the stroke...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

To W.C. Macready

1851

Farewell, Macready, since to-night we part;
Full-handed thunders often have confessed
Thy power, well-used to move the public breast.
We thank thee with our voice, and from the heart.
Farewell, Macready, since this night we part,
Go, take thine honors home; rank with the best,
Garrick and statelier Kemble, and the rest
Who made a nation purer through their art.
Thine is it that our drama did not die,
Nor flicker down to brainless pantomine,
And those gilt gauds men-children swarm to see.
Farewell, Macready, moral, grave, sublime;
Our Shakespeares bland and universal eye
Dwells pleased, through twice a hundred years, on thee.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Prologue to The Duchess of Malfy

When Shakespeare soared from life to death, above
All praise, all adoration, save of love,
As here on earth above all men he stood
That were or are or shall be, great, and good,
Past thank or thought of England or of man,
Light from the sunset quickened as it ran.
His word, who sang as never man may sing
And spake as never voice of man may ring,
Not fruitless fell, as seed on sterile ways,
But brought forth increase even to Shakespeare's praise.
Our skies were thrilled and filled, from sea to sea,
With stars outshining all their suns to be.
No later light of tragic song they knew
Like his whose lightning clove the sunset through.
Half Shakespeare's glory, when his hand sublime
Bade all the change of tragic life and time
Live, and outlive all date of quick and ...

Algernon Charles Swinburne