Theodore Watts-Dunton Part 11

AT THE THeaTRE FRANcAIS NOVEMBER 22, 1882

Poet of pity and scourge of sceptred crime- t.i.tan of light, with scarce the G.o.ds for peers- What thoughts come to thee through the mist of years, There sitting calm, master of Fate and Time?

Homage from every tongue, from every clime, In place of gibes, fills now thy satiate ears.

Mine own heart swells, mine eyelids p.r.i.c.k with tears In very pride of thee, old man sublime!

And thou, the mother who bore him, beauteous France, Round whose fair limbs what web of sorrow is spun!- I see thee lift thy tear-stained countenance- Victress by many a victory he hath won; I hear thy voice o'er winds of Fate and Chance Say to the conquered world: 'Behold my son!'

I may mention here that Mr. Watts-Dunton has always shown the greatest admiration of the actor's art and the greatest interest in actors and actresses. He has affirmed that 'the one great art in which women are as essential as men-the one great art in which their place can never be supplied by men-is in the acted drama, which the Greeks held in such high esteem that aeschylus and Sophocles acted as stage managers and show-masters, although the stage mask dispensed with much of the necessity of calling in the aid of women.'

'Great as is the importance of female poets,' says Mr. Watts-Dunton, 'men are so rich in endowment, that literature would be a worthy expression of the human mind if there had been no Sappho and no Emily Bronte-no Mrs.

Browning-no Christina Rossetti. Great as is the importance of female novelists, men again are so rich in endowment that literature would be a worthy expression of the human mind if there had been no Georges Sand, no Jane Austen, no Charlotte Bronte, no George Eliot, no Mrs. Gaskell, no Mrs. Craigie. As to painting and music, up to now women have not been notable workers in either of these departments, notwithstanding Rosa Bonheur and one or two others. But, to say nothing of France, what in England would have been the acted drama, whether in prose or verse, without Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Hermann Vezin, Adelaide Neilson, Miss Glyn, in tragedy; without Mrs. Bracegirdle, Kitty Clive, Julia Neilson, Ellen Terry, Irene Vanbrugh and Ada Rehan in comedy?'

People who run down actresses should say at once that the acted drama is not one of the fine arts at all. Mr. Watts-Dunton has often expressed the opinion that there is in England a great waste of histrionic endowment among women, owing to the ignorant prejudice against the stage which even now is prevalent in England. 'An enormous waste of force,'

says he, 'there is, of course, in other departments of intellectual activity, but nothing like the waste of latent histrionic powers among Englishwomen.' And he supplies many examples of this which have come under his own observation, among which I can mention only one.

'Some years ago,' he said to me, 'I was invited to go to see the performance of a French play given by the pupils of a fas.h.i.+onable school in the West End of London. Apart from the admirable French accent of the girls I was struck by the acting of two or three performers who showed some latent dramatic talent. I have always taken an interest in amateur dramatic performances, for a reason that Lady Archibald Campbell in one of her writings has well discussed, namely, that what the amateur actor or actress may lack in knowledge of stage traditions he or she will sometimes more than make up for by the sweet flexibility and abandon of nature. The amateur will often achieve that rarest of all artistic excellencies, whether in poetry, painting, sculpture, music, or histrionics-navete: a quality which in poetry is seen in its perfection in the finest of the writings of Coleridge; in acting, it is perhaps seen in its perfection in Duse. Now, on the occasion to which I refer, one of these schoolgirl actresses achieved, as I thought, and as others thought with me, this rare and perfect flower of histrionics; and when I came to know her I found that she joined wide culture and an immense knowledge of Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, and Moliere with an innate gift for rendering them. In any other society than that of England she would have gone on the stage as a matter of course, but the fatal prejudice about social position prevented her from following the vocation that Nature intended for her. Since then I have seen two or three such cases, not so striking as this one, but striking enough to make me angry with Philistinism.'

With this sympathy for histrionic art, it is not at all surprising that Mr. Watts-Dunton took the greatest interest in the open-air plays organized by Lady Archibald Campbell at Coombe. I have seen a brilliant description of these plays by him which ought to have been presented to the public years ago. It forms, I believe, a long chapter of an unpublished novel. Turning over the pages of Davenport Adams's 'Dictionary of the Drama,' which every lover of the theatre must regret he did not live to complete, I come accidentally upon these words: "One of the most recently printed epilogues is that which Theodore Watts-Dunton wrote for an amateur performance of Banville's 'Le Baiser'

at Coombe, Surrey, in August, 1889." And this reminds me that I ought to quote this famous epilogue here; for Professor Strong in his review of 'The Coming of Love' in 'Literature' speaks of the amazing command over metre and colour and story displayed in the poem. It is, I believe, the only poem in the English language in which an elaborate story is fully told by poetic suggestion instead of direct statement.

A REMINISCENCE OF THE OPEN-AIR PLAYS.

Epilogue for the open-air performance of Banville's 'Le Baiser, in which Lady Archibald Campbell took the part of 'Pierrot' and Miss Annie Schletter the part of the 'Fairy.'-Coombe, August 9, 1889.

TO PIERROT IN LOVE

The Clown whose kisses turned a Crone to a Fairy-queen

What dost thou here in Love's enchanted wood, Pierrot, who once wert safe as clown and thief- Held safe by love of fun and wine and food- From her who follows love of Woman, Grief- Her who of old stalked over Eden-gra.s.s Behind Love's baby-feet-whose shadow threw On every brook, as on a magic gla.s.s, Prophetic shapes of what should come to pa.s.s When tears got mixt with Paradisal dew?

Kisses are loved but for the lips that kiss: Thine have restored a princess to her throne, Breaking the spell which barred from fairy bliss A fay, and shrank her to a wrinkled crone; But, if thou dream'st that thou from Pantomime Shalt clasp an angel of the mystic moon, Clasp her on banks of Love's own rose and thyme, While woodland warblers ring the nuptial-chime- Bottom to thee were but a week buffoon.

When yonder fairy, long ago, was told The spell which caught her in malign eclipse, Turning her radiant body foul and old, Would yield to some knight-errant's virgin lips, And when, through many a weary day and night, She, wondering who the paladin would be Whose kiss should charm her from her grievous plight, Pictured a-many princely heroes bright, Dost thou suppose she ever pictured thee?

'Tis true the mischief of the foeman's charm Yielded to thee-to that first kiss of thine.

We saw her tremble-lift a rose-wreath arm, Which late, all veined and shrivelled, made her pine; We saw her fingers rise and touch her cheek, As if the morning breeze across the wood, Which lately seemed to strike so chill and bleak Through all the wasted body, bent and weak, Were light and music now within her blood.

'Tis true thy kiss made all her form expand- Made all the skin grow smooth and pure as pearl, Till there she stood, tender, yet tall and grand, A queen of Faery, yet a lovesome girl, Within whose eyes-whose wide, new-litten eyes- New-litten by thy kiss's re-creation- Expectant joy that yet was wild surprise Made all her flesh like light of summer skies When dawn lies dreaming of the morn's carnation.

But when thou saw'st the breaking of the spell Within whose grip of might her soul had pined, Like some sweet b.u.t.terfly that breaks the cell In which its purple pinions slept confined, And when thou heard'st the strains of elfin song Her sisters sang from rainbow cars above her- Didst thou suppose that she, though prisoned long, And freed at last by thee from all the wrong, Must for that kiss take Harlequin for lover?

Hearken, sweet fool! Though Banville carried thee To lawns where love and song still share the sward Beyond the golden river few can see, And fewer still, in these grey days, can ford; And though he bade the wings of Pa.s.sion fan Thy face, till every line grows bright and human, Feathered thy spirit's wing for wider span, And fired thee with the fire that comes to man When first he plucks the rose of Nature, Woman;

And though our actress gives thee that sweet gaze Where spirit and matter mingle in liquid blue- That face, where pity through the frolic plays- That form, whose lines of light Love's pencil drew- That voice whose music seems a new caress Whenever pa.s.sion makes a new transition From key to key of joy or quaint distress- That sigh, when, now, thy fairy's loveliness Leaves thee alone to mourn Love's vanished vision:

Still art thou Pierrot-naught but Pierrot ever; For is not this the very word of Fate: 'No mortal, clown or king, shall e'er dissever His present glory from his past estate'?

Yet be thou wise and dry those foolish tears; The clown's first kiss was needed, not the clown, By her, who, fired by hopes and chilled by fears, Sought but a kiss like thine for years on years: Be wise, I say, and wander back to town.

Recurring to the Marston gatherings, I reproduce here, from the same unpublished story to which I have already alluded, the following interesting account of them and of other social reunions of the like kind.

"Many of those who have reached life's meridian, or pa.s.sed it, will remember the sudden rise, a quarter of a century ago, of Rossetti, Swinburne, and William Morris-poets who seemed for a time to threaten the ascendency of Tennyson himself. Between this galaxy and the latest generation of poets there rose, culminated, and apparently set, another-the group which it was the foolish fas.h.i.+on to call 'the pre-Raphaelite poets,' some of whom yielded, or professed to yield, to the influence of Rossetti, some to that of William Morris, and some to that of Swinburne. Round them all, however, there was the aura of Baudelaire or else of Gautier. These-though, as in all such cases, nature had really made them very unlike each other-formed themselves into a set, or rather a sect, and tried apparently to become as much like each other as possible, by studying French models, selecting subjects more or less in harmony with the French temper, getting up their books after the fas.h.i.+on that was as much approved then as contemporary fas.h.i.+ons in books are approved now, and by various other means. They had certain places of meeting, where they held high converse with themselves. One of these was the hospitable house, in Fitzroy Square, of the beloved and venerable painter, Mr. Madox Brown, whose face, as he sat smiling upon his Eisteddfod, radiating benevolence and encouragement to the unfledged bards he loved, was a picture which must be cherished in many a grateful memory now. Another was the equally hospitable house, in the neighbourhood of Chalk Farm, where reigned the dramatist, Westland Marston, and where his blind poet-boy Philip lived. Here O'Shaughnessy would come with a glow of triumph on his face, which indicated clearly enough what he was carrying in his pocket-something connecting him with the divine Theophile-a letter from the Gallic Olympus perhaps, or a presentation copy sent from the very top of the Gallic Parna.s.sus. It was on one of these occasions that Rossetti satirically advised one of the cenacle to quit so poor a language as that of Shakespeare and write entirely in French, which language Morris immediately defined as 'nosey Latin.' It is a pity that some literary veteran does not give his reminiscences of those Marston nights, or rather Marston mornings, for the symposium began at about twelve and went on till nearly six-those famous gatherings of poets, actors, and painters, enlinking the days of Macready, Phelps, Miss Glyn, Robert Browning, Dante Rossetti, and R. H. Horne, with the days of poets, actors, and painters like Mr. Swinburne, Morris, and Mr.

Irving. Yet these pre-Raphaelite bards had another joy surpa.s.sing even that of the Chalk Farm symposium, that of a.s.sisting at those literary and artistic feasts which Rossetti used occasionally to give at Cheyne Walk. Generosity and geniality incarnate was the mysterious poet-painter to those he loved; and if the budding bard yearned for sympathy, as he mostly does, he could get quite as much as he deserved, and more, at 16 Cheyne Walk. To say that any artist could take a deeper interest in the work of a friend than in his own seems bold, yet it could be said of Rossetti. The mean rivalries of the literary character that so often make men experienced in the world shrink away from it, found no place in that great heart. To hear him recite in his musical voice the sonnet or lyric of some unknown bard or bardling-recite it in such a way as to lend the lines the light and music of his own marvellous genius, while the bard or bardling listened with head bowed low, so that the flush on his cheek and the moisture in his eye should not be seen-this was an experience that did indeed make the bardic life 'worth living.'"

Chapter X DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

Thou knowest that island, far away and lone, Whose sh.o.r.es are as a harp, where billows break In spray of music and the breezes shake O'er spicy seas a woof of colour and tone, While that sweet music echoes like a moan In the island's heart, and sighs around the lake, Where, watching fearfully a watchful snake, A damsel weeps upon her emerald throne.

Life's ocean, breaking round thy senses' sh.o.r.e, Struck golden song, as from the strand of Day: For us the joy, for thee the fell foe lay- Pain's blinking snake around the fair isle's core, Turning to sighs the enchanted sounds that play Around thy lovely island evermore.

I am now brought to a portion of my study which may well give me pause-the relations between Mr. Watts-Dunton and Rossetti. The latest remarks upon them are, I think, the best; they are by Mr. A. C. Benson in his monograph on Rossetti in the 'English Men of Letters':-

"It would be impossible to exaggerate the value of his friends.h.i.+p for Rossetti. Mr. Watts-Dunton understood him, sympathized with him, and with self-denying and un.o.btrusive delicacy s.h.i.+elded him, so far as any one can be s.h.i.+elded, from the rough contact of the world. It was for a long time hoped that Mr. Watts-Dunton would give the memoir of his great friend to the world, but there is such a thing as knowing a man too well to be his biographer. It is, however, an open secret that a vivid sketch of Rossetti's personality has been given to the world in Mr. Watts-Dunton's well-known romance 'Aylwin,' where the artist D'Arcy is drawn from Rossetti... . Though singularly independent in judgment, it is clear that, at all events in the later years of his life, Rossetti's taste was, unconsciously, considerably affected by the critical preferences of Mr. Watts-Dunton. I have heard it said by one {139} who knew them both well that it was often enough for Mr. Watts-Dunton to express a strong opinion for Rossetti to adopt it as his own, even though he might have combated it for the moment... .

At the end of each part [of 'Rose Mary'] comes a curious lyrical outburst called the Beryl-songs, the chant of the imprisoned spirits, which are intended to weld the poem together and to supply connections. It is said that Mr. Watts-Dunton, when he first read the poem in proof, said to Rossetti that the drift was too intricate for an ordinary reader. Rossetti took this to heart, and wrote the Beryl-songs to bridge the gaps; Mr. Watts-Dunton, on being shown them, very rightly disapproved, and said humorously that they turned a fine ballad into a b.a.s.t.a.r.d opera. Rossetti, who was ill at the time, was so much disconcerted and upset at the criticism, that Mr.

Watts-Dunton modified his judgment, and the interludes were printed.

But at a later day Rossetti himself came round to the opinion that they were inappropriate. They are curiously wrought, rhapsodical, irregular songs, with fantastic rhymes, and were better away... .

Then he began to settle down into the production of the single-figure pictures, of which Mr. Watts-Dunton wrote that 'apart from any question of technical shortcomings, one of Rossetti's strongest claims to the attention of posterity was that of having invented, in the three-quarter length pictures painted from one face, a type of female beauty which was akin to none other, which was entirely new, in short-and which, for wealth of sublime and mysterious suggestion, unaided by complex dramatic design, was unique in the art of the world."

[Picture: Pandora. Crayon by D. G. Rossetti at 'The Pines']

It is well known that Rossetti wished his life-if written at all-to be written by Mr. Watts-Dunton, unless his brother should undertake it. It is also well known that the brother himself wished it, but pressure of other matters prevented Mr. Watts-Dunton from undertaking it. I expected difficulties in approaching with regard to the delicate subject of his relations with Rossetti, but I was not prepared to find them so great as they have proved to be. When I wrote to him and asked him whether the portrait of D'Arcy in 'Aylwin' was to be accepted as a portrait of Rossetti, and when I asked him to furnish me with some materials and facts to form the basis of this chapter, I received from him the following letter:-

"MY DEAR MR. DOUGLAS,-I have never myself affirmed that D'Arcy was to be taken as an actual portrait of Rossetti. Even if I thought that a portrait of him could be given in any form of imaginative literature, I have views of my own as to the propriety of giving actual portraits of men with whom a novelist or poet has been brought into contact.

It is quite impossible for an imaginative writer to avoid the imperious suggestions of his memory when he is conceiving a character. Thousands of times in a year does one come across critical remarks upon the prototypes of the characters of such great novelists as Scott, d.i.c.kens, Thackeray, the Brontes, George Eliot, George Meredith, Thomas Hardy, and the rest. And I believe that every one of these writers would confess that his prominent characters were suggested to him by living individuals or by individuals who figure in history-but suggested only. And as to the ethics of so dealing with friends and acquaintances I have also views of my own. These are easily stated. The closer the imaginative writer gets to the portrait of a friend, or even of an acquaintance, the more careful must he be to set his subject in a genial and even a generous light. It would be a terrible thing if every man who has been a notable figure in life were to be represented as this or that at the sweet will of everybody who has known him. Generous treatment, I say, is demanded of every writer who makes use of the facets of character that have struck him in his intercourse with friend or acquaintance. I will give you an instance of this. When I drew De Castro in 'Aylwin' I made use of my knowledge of a certain individual. Now this individual, although a man of quite extraordinary talents, brilliance, and personal charm, bore not a very good name, because he was driven to live upon his wits. He had endowments so great and so various that I cannot conceive any line of life in which he was not fitted to excel-but it was his irreparable misfortune to have been trained to no business and no profession, and to have been thrown upon the world without means, and without useful family connections. Such a man must either sink beneath the oceanic waves of London life, or he must make a struggle to live upon his wits. This individual made that struggle-he struck out with a vigour that, as far as I know, was without example in London society. He got to know, and to know intimately, men like Ruskin, G. F. Watts, D.

G. Rossetti, Mr. W. M. Rossetti, William Morris, Mr. Swinburne, Sir Edward Burne Jones, Cruikshank, and I know not what important people besides. When he was first brought into touch with the painters, he knew nothing whatever of art; in two or three years, as I have heard Rossetti say, he was a splendid 'connoisseur.' If he had been brought up as a lawyer he must have risen to the top of the profession. If he had been brought up as an actor he must, as I have heard a dramatist say, have risen to the top. But from his very first appearance in London he was driven to live upon his wits. And here let me say that this man, who was a bitter unfriend of my own, because I was compelled to stand in the way of certain dealings of his, but whom I really could have liked if he had not been obliged to live upon his wits at the expense of certain friends of mine, formed the acquaintance of the great men I have enumerated, not so much from worldly motives, as I believe, as from real admiration. But being driven to live upon his wits, he had not sufficient moral strength to afford a conscience, and the queerest stories were told-some of them true enough-of his dealings with those great men. Whistler's anecdotes of him at one period set many a table in a roar; and yet so winsome was the man that after a time he became as intimate with Whistler as ever. If he had possessed a private income, and if that income had been carefully settled upon him, I believe he would have been one of the most honest of men; I know he would have been one of the most generous. His conduct to the late Treffry Dunn, from whom he could not have expected the least return except that of grat.i.tude, was proof enough of his generosity. Of course to make use of so strange a character as this was a great temptation to me when I wrote 'Aylwin.' But in what has been called my 'thumb-nail portrait of him,' I treated the peccadilloes attributed to him in a playful and jocose way. It would have been quite wrong to have painted otherwise than in playful colours a character like this. Like every other man and woman in this world, he left behind him people who believed in him and loved him. It would have been cruel to wound these, and unfair to the man; and yet because I gave only a slight suggestion of his sublime quackery and supreme blarney, a writer who also knew something about him, but of course not a thousandth part of what I knew, said that I had tried my hand at depicting him in 'Aylwin,' but with no great success. As a matter of fact, I did not attempt to give a portrait of him: I simply used certain facets of his character to work out my story, and then dismissed him. On the other hand, where the character of a friend or acquaintance is n.o.ble, the imagination can work more freely-as in the case of Philip Aylwin, Cyril Aylwin, Wilderspin, Rhona Boswell, Winifred Wynne, Sinfi Lovell. And as to Rossetti, whom I have been charged by certain critics with having idealized in my picture of D'Arcy, all I have to say on that point is this-that if the n.o.ble and fascinating qualities which Rossetti showed had been leavened with mean ones I should not, in introducing his character into a story, have considered it right or fair or generous to dwell upon those mean ones. But as a matter of fact, during my whole intercourse with him he displayed no such qualities. The D'Arcy that I have painted is not one whit n.o.bler, more magnanimous, wide-minded, and generous, than was D. G. Rossetti.

As I have said on several occasions, he could and did take as deep an interest in a friend's work as in his own. And to benefit a friend was the greatest pleasure he had in life. I loved the man so deeply that I should never have introduced D'Arcy into the novel had it not been in the hope of silencing the misrepresentations of him that began as soon as ever Rossetti was laid in the grave at Birchington, by depicting his character in colours as true as they were sympathetic. It has been the grievous fate of Rossetti to be the victim of an amount of detraction which is simply amazing and inscrutable. I cannot in the least understand why this is so. It is the great sorrow of my life. There is a fatality of detraction about his name which in its unreasonableness would be grotesque were it not heartrending. It would turn my natural optimism about mankind into pessimism were it not that another dear friend of mine-a man of equal n.o.bility of character, and almost of equal genius, has escaped calumny altogether-William Morris. This matter is a painful puzzle to me. The only great man of my time who seems to have shared something of Rossetti's fate, is Lord Tennyson. There seems to be a general desire to belittle him, to exaggerate such angularities as were his, and to speak of that almost childlike simplicity of character which was an ineffable charm in him as springing from boorishness and almost from loutishness. On the other hand, another great genius, Browning, for whom I had and have the greatest admiration, seems to be as fortunate as Morris in escaping the detractor. But I am wandering from Rossetti. I do not feel any impulse to write reminiscences of him. Too much has been written about him already-of late a great deal too much. The only thing written about him that has given me comfort-I may say joy, is this-it has been written by a man who knew him before I did, who knew him at the time he lost his wife. Mr. Val Prinsep, R.A., has declared that in Rossetti's relations with his wife there was nothing whatever upon which his conscience might reasonably trouble him. I do not remember the exact words, but this was the substance of them. Mr. Val Prinsep is a man of the highest standing, and he knew Rossetti intimately, and he has declared in print that Rossetti could have had no qualms of conscience in regard to his relations with his wife. This, I say, is a source of great comfort to me and to all who loved Rossetti.

That he was whimsical, fanciful, and at times most troublesome to his friends, no one knows better than I do.

No one, I say, is more competent to speak of the whims and the fancies and the troublesomeness of Rossetti than I am; and yet I say that he was one of the n.o.blest-hearted men of his time, and lovable-most lovable."

It would be worse than idle to enter at this time of day upon the painful subject of the "Buchanan affair." Indeed, I have often thought it is a great pity that it is not allowed to die out. The only reason why it is still kept alive seems to be that, without discussing it, it is impossible fully to understand Rossetti's nervous illness, about which so much has been said. I remember seeing in Mr. Watts-Dunton's essay on Congreve in 'Chambers's Encyclopaedia' a definition of envy as the 'literary leprosy.' This phrase has often been quoted in reference to the case of Buchanan, and also in reference to a recent and much more ghastly case between two intimate friends. Now, with all deference to Mr. Watts-Dunton, I cannot accept it as a right and fair definition. It is a fact no doubt that the struggle in the world of art-whether poetry, music, painting, sculpture, or the drama-is unlike that of the mere strivers after wealth and position, inasmuch as to praise one man's artistic work is in a certain way to set it up against the work of another. Still, one can realize, without referring to Disraeli's 'Curiosities of Literature,' that envy is much too vigorous in the artistic life. Now, whatever may have been the good qualities of Buchanan-and I know he had many good qualities-it seems unfortunately to be true that he was afflicted with this terrible disease of envy. There can be no question that what incited him to write the notorious article in the 'Contemporary Review' ent.i.tled 'The Fleshly School of Poetry,' was simply envy-envy and nothing else. It was during the time that Rossetti was suffering most dreadfully from the mental disturbance which seems really to have originated in this attack and the cognate attacks which appeared in certain other magazines, that the intimacy between Mr.

Watts-Dunton and Rossetti was formed and cemented. And it is to this period that Mr. William Rossetti alludes in the following words: "'Watts is a hero of friends.h.i.+p' was, according to Mr. Caine, one of my brother's last utterances, easy enough to be credited."

That he deserved these words I think none will deny; and that the friends.h.i.+p sprang from the depths of the nature of a man to whom the word 'friends.h.i.+p' meant not what it generally means now, a languid sentiment, but what it meant in Shakespeare's time, a deep pa.s.sion, is shown by what some deem the finest lines Mr. Watts-Dunton ever wrote-I mean those lines which he puts into the mouth of Shakespeare's Friend in 'Christmas at the Mermaid,' lines part of which have been admirably turned into Latin by Mr. E. D. Stone, {147} and published by him in the second volume of that felicitous series of Latin translations,' Florilegium Latinum':-

'MR. W. H.'

To sing the nation's song or do the deed That crowns with richer light the motherland, Or lend her strength of arm in hour of need When fangs of foes s.h.i.+ne fierce on every hand, Is joy to him whose joy is working well- Is goal and guerdon too, though never fame.

Should find a thrill of music in his name; Yea, goal and guerdon too, though Scorn should aim Her arrows at his soul's high citadel.

But if the fates withhold the joy from me To do the deed that widens England's day, Or join that song of Freedom's jubilee Begun when England started on her way- Withhold from me the hero's glorious power To strike with song or sword for her, the mother, And give that sacred guerdon to another, Him will I hail as my more n.o.ble brother- Him will I love for his diviner dower.

Enough for me who have our Shakspeare's love To see a poet win the poet's goal, For Will is he; enough and far above All other prizes to make rich my soul.