Happy Shakespeare Day! As is my habit, I try to post one poem by Shakespeare (typically a sonnet; I refuse to excerpt the plays, and the other poetry is mostly either too long or not my favorite) and one poem about Shakespeare on Shakespeare's death day and alleged birthday. Today: two sonnets.
O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute!
Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away!
Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:
Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute,
Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay
Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
Begetters of our deep eternal theme,
When through the old oak forest I am gone,
Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But when I am consumed in the fire,
Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.
—John Keats (1795-1821), "On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again," written (according to the notes in my very battered college edition of Keats), on January 22, 1818. I haven't posted any Keats in a while, and I love him.
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-liv'd Phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one more heinous crime:
O, carve not with the hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen!
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
Yet do thy worst, old Time! Despite thy wrong
My love shall in my verse ever live young.
—William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Sonnet 19. I like this one because it is a little bit bloody, pretty queer (they're all pretty queer), and (see also: all of them) about poetry as an eternal monument. Fuck you, time!!
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