Page:A channel passage and other poems (IA channelpassageot00swinrich).pdf/214



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. A starrier lustre of lordlier music rose Beyond the sundering bar of seas and snows When Chaucer's thought took life and light from his And England's crown was one with Italy's. Loftiest and last, by grace of Shakespeare's word, Arose above their quiring spheres a third, Arose, and flashed, and faltered: song's deep sky Saw Shakespeare pass in light, in music die. No light like his, no music, man might give To bid the darkened sphere, left songless, live. Soft though the sound of Fletcher's rose and rang And lit the lunar darkness as it sang,