FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105  
106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   >>   >|  
New lustre on her with the song he sings. So Shakespeare rests who scorned to lie with kings, Sleeping at peace midst the unhonored dead. And fifty years suffice to overgrow With gentle memories the foul weeds of hate That shamed his grave. The world begins to know Her loss, and view with other eyes his fate. Even as the cunning workman brings to pass The sculptor's thought from out the unwieldy mass Of shapeless marble, so Time lops away The stony crust of falsehood that concealed His just proportions, and, at last revealed, The statue issues to the light of day, Most beautiful, most human. Let them fling The first stone who are tempted even as he, And have not swerved. When did that rare soul sing The victim's shame, the tyrant's eulogy, The great belittle, or exalt the small, Or grudge his gift, his blood, to disenthrall The slaves of tyranny or ignorance? Stung by fierce tongues himself, whose rightful fame Hath he reviled? Upon what noble name Did the winged arrows of the barbed wit glance? The years' thick, clinging curtains backward pull, And show him as he is, crowned with bright beams, "Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful As he hath been or might be; Sorrow seems Half of his immortality."* He needs No monument whose name and song and deeds Are graven in all foreign hearts; but she His mother, England, slow and last to wake, Needs raise the votive shaft for her fame's sake: Hers is the shame if such forgotten be! May, 1875. *"Cain," Act I. Scene 1. ARABESQUE. On a background of pale gold I would trace with quaint design, Penciled fine, Brilliant-colored, Moorish scenes, Mosques and crescents, pages, queens, Line on line, That the prose-world of to-day Might the gorgeous Past's array Once behold. On the magic painted shield Rich Granada's Vega green Should be seen; Crystal fountains, coolness flinging, Hanging gardens' skyward springing Emerald sheen; Ruddy when the daylight falls, Crowned Alhambra's beetling walls Stand revealed; Balconies that overbrow Field and city, vale and stream. In a dream Lulled the dro
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105  
106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

beautiful

 

revealed

 
votive
 

background

 

ARABESQUE

 

forgotten

 
graven
 
Sorrow
 

immortality

 
bright

crowned

 
Beauteous
 

mother

 

England

 

hearts

 

foreign

 

monument

 
colored
 

Emerald

 
daylight

springing

 

skyward

 

fountains

 

Crystal

 

coolness

 

flinging

 

gardens

 

Hanging

 

Crowned

 
Alhambra

stream
 

Lulled

 

beetling

 

Balconies

 

overbrow

 
Should
 

Mosques

 

scenes

 
crescents
 
queens

Moorish

 

quaint

 

design

 

Penciled

 

Brilliant

 

shield

 

painted

 

Granada

 

behold

 

gorgeous