Poem by Alfred Bruce Douglas

To Shakespeare

Most tuneful singer, lover tenderest,
Most sad, most piteous, and most musical,
Thine is the shrine more pilgrim-worn than all
The shrines of singers; high above the rest
Thy trumpet sounds most loud, most manifest.
Yet better were it if a lonely call
Of woodland birds, a song, a madrigal,
Were all the jetsam of thy sea's unrest.

For now thy praises have become too loud
On vulgar lips, and every yelping cur
Yaps thee a paean ; the whiles little men,
Not tall enough to worship in a crowd,
Spit their small wits at thee. Ah ! better then
The broken shrine, the lonely worshipper. 

1. The Garden of Death
2. Rejected
3. Sonnet on the Sonnet
4. Autumn Days
5. Spring

Thomas Hardy To Shakespeare ("Bright baffling Soul, least capturable of themes") 1916

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