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Stratford-on-Avon

By Algernon Charles Swinburne

Topics: classic

Be glad in heaven above all souls insphered,     Most royal and most loyal born of men,     Shakespeare, of all on earth beloved or feared     Or worshipped, highest in sight of human ken.     The homestead hallowed by thy sovereign birth,     Whose name, being one with thine, stands higher than Rome,     Forgets not how of all on English earth     Their trust is holiest, there who have their home.     Stratford is thine and England's. None that hate     The commonweal whose empire sets men free     Find comfort there, where once by grace of fate     A soul was born as boundless as the sea.     If life, if love, if memory now be thine,     Rejoice that still thy Stratford bears thy sign.

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Algernon Charles Swinburne

About Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) was an English poet known for metrical innovation and bold themes. His "Atalanta in Calydon" and "Poems and Ballads" challenged Victorian conventions with their musical intensity and controversial subject matter.

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