Page:Poems, Meynell, 1921.djvu/137

 THE TWO SHAKESPEARE TERCENTENARIES

OF BIRTH, 1864; OF DEATH, 1916.

TO SHAKESPEARE

ONGER 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.

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