Father of Women and Other Poems — The Two Shakespeare Tercentenaries

THE TWO SHAKESPEARE TERCENTENARIES:

OF BIRTH, 1864: OF DEATH, 1916.

TO SHAKESPEARE

Longer than thine, than thine, Is now my time of life; and thus thy years Seem to be clasped and harboured within mine.

O how ignoble this my clasp appears!

Thy unprophetic birth, Thy darkling death: living I might have seen That cradle, marked those labours, closed that earth.

O first, O last, O infinite between!

Now that my life has shared Thy dedicated date, O mortal, twice, To what all-vain embrace shall be compared My lean enclosure of thy paradise?

To ignorant arms that fold A poet to a foolish breast?

The Line, That is not, with the world within its hold?

So, days with days, my days encompass thine.