Will, I knew it all the while! And you know it--and you smile! My quill was but a Jackdaw's feather, While the quill that Ben, there, wields, Fluttered down thro' azure fields, From an eagle in the sun; And yours, Will, yours, no earth-born thing, A plume of rainbow-tinctured grain, Dropt out of an angel's wing. Only a Jackdaw's feather mine, And mine ran ink, and Ben's ran wine, And yours the pure Pierian streams. But I had dreams, O, I had dreams! Dreams, you understand me, Will; And I fretted at the tether That bound me to the lowly plain, Gnawed my heart out, for I knew Once, tho' that was long ago, I might have risen with Ben and you Somewhere near that Holy Hill Whence the living rivers flow. Let it pass. I did not know One bitter phrase could ever fly So far through that immortal sky --Seeing all my songs had flown so low-- One envious phrase that cannot die From century to century. Kit Marlowe ceased a moment, and the wind, As if indeed the night were all one ghost, Wailed round the Mermaid Inn, then sent once more Its desolate passion through the reader's voice:-- Some truth there was in what I said. Kit Marlowe taught you half your trade; And something of the rest you learned From me,--but all you took you earned. You took the best I had to give, You took my clay and made it live; And that--why that's what God must do!-- My music made for mortal ears You flung to all the listening spheres. You took my dreams and made them true. And, if I claimed them, the blank air Might claim the breath I shape to prayer. I do not claim it! Let the earth Claim the thrones she brings to birth. Let the first shapers of our tongue Claim whate'er is said or sung, Till the doom repeal that debt And cancel the first alphabet. Yet when, like a god, you scaled The shining crags where my foot failed; When I saw my fruit of the vine Foam in the Olympian cup, Or in that broader chalice shine Blood-red, a sacramental drink, With stars for bubbles, lifted up, Through the universal night, Up to the celestial brink, Up to that quintessential Light Where God acclaimed you for the wine Crushed from those poor grapes of mine; O, you'll understand, no doubt, How the poor vine-dresser fell, How a pin-prick can let out All the bannered hosts of hell, Nay, a knife-thrust, the sharp truth-- I had spilt my wine of youth, The Temple was not mine to build. My place in the world's march was filled.