Mother whose womb brought forth our man of men, Mother of Shakespeare, whom all time acclaims Queen therefore, sovereign queen of English dames, Throned higher than sat thy sonless empress then, Was it thy son's young passion-guided pen Which drew, reflected from encircling flames, A figure marked by the earlier of thy names Wife, and from all her wedded kinswomen Marked by the sign of murderess? Pale and great, Great in her grief and sin, but in her death And anguish of her penitential breath Greater than all her sin or sin-born fate, She stands, the holocaust of dark desire, Clothed round with song for ever as with fire. XVII ANONYMOUS PLAYS Ye too, dim watchfires of some darkling hour, Whose fame forlorn time saves not nor proclaims For ever, but forgetfulness defames And darkness and the shadow of death devour, Lift up ye too your light, put forth your power, Let the far twilight feel your soft small flames And smile, albeit night name not even their names, Ghost by ghost passing, flower blown down on flower: That sweet-tongued shadow, like a star's that passed Singing, and light was from its darkness cast To paint the face of Painting fair with praise:[1] And that wherein forefigured smiles the pure Fraternal face of Wordsworth's Elidure Between two child-faced masks of merrier days.[2] [1] _Doctor Dodypol._ [2] _Nobody and Somebody._ XVIII ANONYMOUS PLAYS More yet and more, and yet we mark not all: The Warning fain to bid fair women heed Its hard brief note of deadly doom and deed;[1] The verse that strewed too thick with flowers the hall Whence Nero watched his fiery festival;[2] That iron page wherein men's eyes who read See, bruised and marred between two babes that bleed, A mad red-handed husband's martyr fall;[3] The scene which crossed and streaked with mirth the strife Of Henry with his sons and witchlike wife;[4] And that sweet pageant of the kindly fiend, Who, seeing three friends in spirit and heart made one, Crowned with good hap the true-love wiles he screened In the pleached lanes of pleasant Edmonton.[5] [1] _A Warning for Fair Women._ [2] _The Tragedy of Nero._ [3] _A Yorkshire Tragedy._ [4] _Look about you._ [5] _The Merry Devil of Edmonton._ XIX THE MANY I