Genius claims the festival
While before thy shrine we bend,
Shade of Shakspeare, hear our call,
Spirit of the Bard, descend!
Come with thine immortal lyre,
Strike the chords of living fire,
Till our burning bosoms own
The magick of its mighty tone.
Shakspeare, Nature bows before thee,
Unscathing waves Time's pinion o'er thee,
Still the flowers thy fancy wreathed,
And those high thoughts the feelings breathed,
As purely glow, as brightly shine,
As when, with energy divine,
Thy soaring mind and matchless skill
Subdued the passions to thy will.
The emanation of thy soul
Kindles like fire Prometheus stole
Thou smilest-tides of joy are rushing-
Thou sighest-tears of grief are gushing-
Hark! 'tis thy clarion sounds, and far,
Like gathering tempest, rolls the war,-
While floating banners, flashing steel,
And all, that Heroes, Patriots feel,
Bursts on the heart, and chains the sense
To bow to thine omnipotence.
Within the circle of thy spell
The willing captive sits confined,
Enters, with thee, Prospero's cell,
With Ariel rides the wind;
Or hears sweet Isabella plead,
Or trembles lest the Merchant bleed;
Or laughs in wildness of delight,
While jests the fat, out-witted Knight.
Then wild as fairy revelry,
See the Summer's Dream flit by-
Ah! Love, would you concealment seek?
Then spare Viola's damask cheek;
Its changing hue betrays your power,
As fades beneath the sun, the flower.
But soft, here's Rosalind so gay,
With voice of mirth and brow of May,
While care hath fled a heart so holy,
To live with Jaques the melancholy.
And "pretty Perdita” we hail,
Whose fortunes are a "Winter's Tale ;"
And free, as summer foliage springs,
Lovers, ladies, clowns, and kings,
Rise and sparkle, sport and shine
In the gay, creating line,
While Nature holds the glass so true,
That Folly may her image view,
Or Virtue, with an upward gaze,
See all heaven before her blaze.
But now these laughing visions fly,
Sterner scenes arise,
Macbeth stalks, in lightning, by,
And good king Duncan dies;
And treacherous John hath grasped a crown;
And feeble Richard's fortunes frown;
While rival roses flout the sky,
This the crimson's sanguine die,
Pallid that as northern snows,
And the civil broils are raging,
Fierce the brother-hosts engaging,
While noble blood like water flows;
Till, ambition's sacrifice,
The bold and bloody Richard dies.
Then Rome to Coriolanus pleads,
And Brutus strikes and Julius bleeds;
But the world is nought to Antony
If Egypt's witching queen be by.
Misjudging Timon rails at men;
While virtue crowns fair Imogen;
And weeps the poor distracted Lear,
And Romeo dies on Juliet's bier,
And the ghost hath breathed in Hamlet's ear
Revenge" against the murderer r;
And Othello's gentle bride
For her jealous lord hath died.
Thus the varied scenes arise
In Shakspeare's glowing thought,
Bright hues and figures from the skies,
On nature's canvass wrought,
And yet so blended, so concealed,
The human heart is all revealed.
Oh, while the proudest names and ages,
With his praise inscribe their pages,
His soul, that spurned at tyranny,
Would claim affiance with the Free!
And we, who proudly boast to inherit
With his speech his quenchless spirit,
We will loudly sound his name,
Till our world echoes with his fame,
Fresh as spring our living fountains,
Everlasting as our mountains,
Nor earth shall mourn his Memory dead
Till those are parched, and these are fled.
Sean Are What
Long had the world its darkened course pursued,
And Science drooped, by priestly craft subdued;
Dread Superstition swayed her vengeful rod,
And untaught millions trembled at her nod.
Rude was the age, and savage every breast,
And fluttering Genius, weeping, sunk to rest.
But through this gloom of wild and black dismay,
The twilight burst, then sprung a new-born day.
The rising sun of Wisdom proudly gleams,
And Folly's midnight shrinks beneath her beams.
Then Genius waking, from her dream of night,
O'er Fancy's courses wings her rapid flight;
And Science, smiling, hailed the joyful hour,
When Learning triumphed o'er despotick power.
As on the vapour cloud reflected rays,
In brilliant tints, the beauteous bow displays;
Which Mercy dictates from her throne above,
The heavenly harbinger of peace and love;
So Science shed her influence on the mind,
The heart instructed, and the age refined;
Her beams to man a future pledge bestows,
Revives his hopes, and softens all his woes.
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