The bitterness of death and bitterer scorn Breathes from the broad-leafed aloe-plant whence thou Wast fain to gather for thy bended brow A chaplet by no gentler forehead worn. Grief deep as hell, wrath hardly to be borne, Ploughed up thy soul till round the furrowing plough The strange black soil foamed, as a black beaked prow Bids night-black waves foam where its track has torn. Too faint the phrase for thee that only saith Scorn bitterer than the bitterness of death Pervades the sullen splendour of thy soul, Where hate and pain make war on force and fraud And all the strengths of tyrants; whence unflawed It keeps this noble heart of hatred whole. XIII JOHN DAY Day was a full-blown flower in heaven, alive With murmuring joy of bees and birds aswarm, When in the skies of song yet flushed and warm With music where all passion seems to strive For utterance, all things bright and fierce to drive Struggling along the splendour of the storm, Day for an hour put off his fiery form, And golden murmurs from a golden hive Across the strong bright summer wind were heard, And laughter soft as smiles from girls at play And loud from lips of boys brow-bound with May Our mightiest age let fall its gentlest word, When Song, in semblance of a sweet small bird, Lit fluttering on the light swift hand of Day. XIV JAMES SHIRLEY The dusk of day's decline was hard on dark When evening trembled round thy glowworm lamp That shone across her shades and dewy damp A small clear beacon whose benignant spark Was gracious yet for loiterers' eyes to mark, Though changed the watchword of our English camp Since the outposts rang round Marlowe's lion ramp, When thy steed's pace went ambling round Hyde Park. And in the thickening twilight under thee Walks Davenant, pensive in the paths where he, The blithest throat that ever carolled love In music made of morning's merriest heart, Glad Suckling, stumbled from his seat above And reeled on slippery roads of alien art. XV THE TRIBE OF BENJAMIN Sons born of many a loyal Muse to Ben, All true-begotten, warm with wine or ale, Bright from the broad light of its presence, hail! Prince Randolph, nighest his throne of all his men, Being highest in spirit and heart who hailed him then King, nor might other spread so blithe a sail: Cartwright, a soul pent in with narrower pale, Praised of thy sire for manful might of pen: Marmion, whose verse keeps alway keen and fine The perfume of their Apollonian wine Who shared with that stout sire of all and thee The exuberant chalice of his echoing shrine: Is not your praise writ broad in gold which he Inscribed, that all who praise his name should see? XVI ANONYMOUS PLAYS: "ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM"