The Afterglow of Shakespeare

Let there be light, said Time: and England heard:     And manhood grew to godhead at the word.     No light had shone, since earth arose from sleep,     So far; no fire of thought had cloven so deep.     A day beyond all days bade life acclaim     Shakespeare: and man put on his crowning name.     All secrets once through darkling ages kept     Shone, sang, and smiled to think how long they slept.     Man rose past fear of lies whereon he trod:     And Dante's ghost saw hell devour his God.     Bright Marlowe, brave as winds that brave the sea     When sundawn bids their bliss in battle be,     Lit England first along the ways whereon     Song brighter far than sunlight soared and shone.     He died ere half his life had earned his right     To lighten time with song's triumphant light.     Hope shrank, and felt the stroke at heart: but one     She knew not rose, a man to match the sun.     And England's hope and time's and man's became     Joy, deep as music's heart and keen as flame.     Not long, for heaven on earth may live not long,     Light sang, and darkness died before the song.     He passed, the man above all men, whose breath     Transfigured life with speech that lightens death.     He passed: but yet for many a lustrous year     His light of song bade England shine and hear.     As plague and fire and faith in falsehood spread,     So from the man of men, divine and dead,     Contagious godhead, seen, unknown, and heard,     Fulfilled and quickened England; thought and word,     When men would fain set life to music, grew     More sweet than years which knew not Shakespeare knew.     The simplest soul that set itself to song     Sang, and may fear not time's or change's wrong.     The lightest eye that glanced on life could see     Through grief and joy the God that man might be.     All passion whence the living soul takes fire     Till death fulfil despair and quench desire,     All love that lightens through the cloud of chance,     All hate that lurks in hope and smites askance,     All holiness of sorrow, all divine     Pity, whose tears are stars that save and shine,     All sunbright strength of laughter like the sea's     When spring and autumn loose their lustrous breeze,     All sweet, all strange, all sad, all glorious things,     Lived on his lips, and hailed him king of kings.     All thought, all strife, all anguish, all delight,     Spake all he bade, and speak till day be night.     No soul that heard, no spirit that beheld,     Knew not the God that lured them and compelled.     On Beaumont's brow the sun arisen afar     Shed fire which lit through heaven the younger star     That sank before the sunset: one dark spring     Slew first the kinglike subject, then the king.     The glory left above their graves made strong     The heart of Fletcher, till the flower-sweet song     That Shakespeare culled from Chaucer's field, and died,     Found ending on his lips that smiled and sighed.     From Dekker's eyes the light of tear-touched mirth     Shone as from Shakespeare's, mingling heaven and earth.     Wild witchcraft's lure and England's love made one     With Shakespeare's heart the heart of Middleton.     Harsh, homely, true, and tragic, Rowley told     His heart's debt down in rough and radiant gold.     The skies that Tourneur's lightning clove and rent     Flamed through the clouds where Shakespeare's thunder went.     Wise Massinger bade kings be wise in vain     Ere war bade song, storm-stricken, cower and wane.     Kind Heywood, simple-souled and single-eyed,     Found voice for England's home-born praise and pride.     Strange grief, strange love, strange terror, bared the sword     That smote the soul by grace and will of Ford.     The stern grim strength of Chapman's thought found speech     Loud as when storm at ebb-tide rends the beach:     And all the honey brewed from flowers in May     Made sweet the lips and bright the dreams of Day.     But even as Shakespeare caught from Marlowe's word     Fire, so from his the thunder-bearing third,     Webster, took light and might whence none but he     Hath since made song that sounded so the sea     Whose waves are lives of menwhose tidestream rolls     From year to darkening year the freight of souls.     Alone above it, sweet, supreme, sublime,     Shakespeare attunes the jarring chords of time;     Alone of all whose doom is death and birth,     Shakespeare is lord of souls alive on earth.