Poems & Ballads (Second Series)

XXIII

All those that here were of thy kind and kin, Beside thee and below thee, full of love, Full-souled for song,--and one alone above Whose only light folds all your glories in-- With all birds' notes from nightingale to dove Fill the world whither we too fain would win.

XXIV

The world that sees in heaven the sovereign light Of sunlike Shakespeare, and the fiery night Whose stars were watched of Webster; and beneath, The twin-souled brethren of the single wreath, Grown in kings' gardens, plucked from pastoral heath, Wrought with all flowers for all men's heart's delight.

XXV

And that fixed fervour, iron-red like Mars, In the mid moving tide of tenderer stars, That burned on loves and deeds the darkest done, Athwart the incestuous prisoner's bride-house bars; And thine, most highest of all their