Have I not traced A seaboard to Bohemia, and made The cannons roar a whole wide century Before the first was forged? Think you, then, That he, the ever-learned Verulam, Would have erred thus? So may my very faults In their gross falseness prove that I am true, And by that falseness gender truth in you. And what is left? They say that they have found A script, wherein the writer tells my Lord He is a secret poet. True enough! But surely now that secret is o'er past. Have you not read his poems? Know you not That in our day a learned chancellor Might better far dispense unjustest law Than be suspect of such frivolity As lies in verse? Therefore his poetry Was secret. Now that he is gone 'Tis so no longer. You may read his verse, And judge if mine be better or be worse: Read and pronounce! The meed of praise is thine; But still let his be his and mine be mine. I say no more; but how can you for- swear Outspoken Jonson, he who knew me well; So, too, the epitaph which still you read? Think you they faced my sepulchre with lies — Gross lies, so evident and palpable That every townsman must have wot of it, And not a worshipper within the church But must have smiled to see the marbled fraud? Surely this touches you? But if by chance My reasoning still leaves you obdurate, I'll lay one final plea. I pray you look On my presentment, as it reaches you. My features shall be sponsors for my fame; My brow shall speak when Shakespeare's voice is dumb, And be his warrant in an age to come. THE EMPIRE 1902 They said that it had feet of clay, That its fall was sure and quick. In the flames of yesterday All the clay was burned to brick. When they carved our epitaph And marked us doomed beyond recall, "We are," we answered, with a laugh, "The Empire that declines to fall." A VOYAGE 1909 Breathing the stale and stuffy air Of office or consulting room, Our thoughts will wander back to where We heard the low Atlantic boom, And, creaming underneath our screw, We watched the swirling waters break, Silver filagrees on blue Spreading fan-wise in our wake. Cribbed within the city's fold, Fettered to our daily round, We'll conjure up the haze of gold Which ringed the wide horizon round. And still we'll break the sordid day By fleeting visions far and fair, The silver shield of Vigo Bay, The long brown cliff of Finisterre.