Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/169

Rh THE MODERN RHYMER

I

you who rhyme, and I who rhyme,

Have not we sworn it, many a time,

That we no more our verse would scrawl,

For Shakespeare he had sung it all!

And yet, whatever others see,

The earth is fresh to you and me;

And birds that sing, and winds that blow,

And blooms that make the country glow,

And lusty swains, and maidens bright,

And clouds by day, and stars by night,

And all the pictures in the skies

That moved before Will Shakespeare's eyes;

Love, hate, and scorn; frost, fire, and flower;

On us as well as him have power.

Go to! our spirits shall not be laid,

Silenced and smothered by a shade.

Avon is not the only stream

Can make a poet sing and dream;

Nor are those castles, queens, and kings

The hight of sublunary things.

II

Beneath the false moon's pallid glare,

By the cool fountain in the square

(This gray-green dusty square they set

Where two gigantic highways met)

We hear a music rare and new,

Sweet Shakespeare was not known to you!

You saw the New World's sun arise;

High up it shines in our own skies.

You saw the ocean from the shore;