O son of man, by lying tongues adored, By slaughterous hands of slaves with feet red-shod In carnage deep as ever Christian trod Profaned with prayer and sacrifice abhorred...
Hills and valleys where April rallies his radiant squadron of flowers and birds, Steep strange beaches and lustrous reaches of fluctuant sea that the land engirds,...
Between the green bud and the red Youth sat and sang by Time, and shed From eyes and tresses flowers and tears, From heart and spirit hopes and fears, Upon the hollow stream whose bed...
Love dark as death and fierce as fire on wing Sustains in sin the soul that feels it cling Like flame whose tongues are serpents: hope and fear Die when a love more dire than hate draws near,...
Swift music made of passion's changeful power, Sweet as the change that leaves the world in flower When spring laughs winter down to deathward, rang From grave and gracious lips that smiled and sang...
Light, as when dawn takes wing and smites the sea, Smote England when his day bade Marlowe be. No fire so keen had thrilled the clouds of time Since Dante's breath made Italy sublime....
The golden bells of fairyland, that ring Perpetual chime for childhood's flower-sweet spring, Sang soft memorial music in his ear Whose answering music shines about us here....
The mightiest choir of song that memory hears Gave England voice for fifty lustrous years. Sunrise and thunder fired and shook the skies That saw the sun-god Marlowe's opening eyes....
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,...
Fire, and behind the breathless flight of fire Thunder that quickens fear and quells desire, Make bright and loud the terror of the night Wherein the soul sees only wrath for light....
The wind that brings us from the springtide south Strange music as from love's or life's own mouth Blew hither, when the blast of battle ceased That swept back southward Spanish prince and priest,...
Sweet as the dewfall, splendid as the south, Love touched with speech Boccaccio's golden mouth, Joy thrilled and filled its utterance full with song, And sorrow smiled on doom that wrought no wrong....
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:...
Sons born of many a loyal Muse to Ben, All true-begotten, warm with wine or ale, Bright from the broad light of his presence, hail! Prince Randolph, nighest his throne of all his men,...
Out of the depths of darkling life where sin Laughs piteously that sorrow should not know Her own ill name, nor woe be counted woe; Where hate and craft and lust make drearier din...
Tom, if they loved thee best who called thee Tom. What else may all men call thee, seeing thus bright Even yet the laughing and the weeping light That still thy kind old eyes are kindled from?...
A wild moon riding high from cloud to cloud, That sees and sees not, glimmering far beneath, Hell's children revel along the shuddering heath With dirge-like mirth and raiment like a shroud:...