Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SHAKESPEARE'S STATUE; CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK, by BAYARD TAYLOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SHAKESPEARE'S STATUE; CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In this free pantheon of the air and sun
Last Line: The reverence of what he was shall call it down
Alternate Author Name(s): Taylor, James Bayard
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Central Park, New York City; Dramatists; Plays & Playwrights; Poetry & Poets; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); Statues


I.

IN this free Pantheon of the air and sun,
Where stubborn granite grudgingly gives place
To petted turf, the garden's daintier race
Of flowers, and Art hath slowly won
A smile from grim, primeval barrenness,
What alien Form doth stand?
Where scarcely yet the heroes of the land,
As in their future's haven, from the stress
Of all conflicting tides, find quiet deep
Of bronze or marble sleep,
What stranger comes, to join the scanty band?
Who pauses here, as one that muses
While centuries of men go by,
And unto all our questioning refuses
His clear, infallible reply?
Who hath his will of us, beneath our new-world sky?

II.

Here, in his right, he stands!
No breadth of earth-dividing seas can bar
The breeze of morning, or the morning star,
From visiting our lands:
His wit, the breeze, his wisdom, as the star,
Shone where our earliest life was set, and blew
To freshen hope and plan
In brains American, --
To urge, resist, encourage, and subdue!
He came, a household ghost we could not ban:
He sat, on winter nights, by cabin fires;
His summer fairies linked their hands
Along our yellow sands;
He preached within the shadow of our spires;
And when the certain Fate drew nigh, to cleave
The birth-cord, and a separate being leave,
He, in our ranks of patient-hearted men,
Wrought with the boundless forces of his fame,
Victorious, and became
The Master of our thought, the land's first Citizen!

III.

If, here, his image seem
Of softer scenes and grayer skies to dream,
Thatched cot and rustic tavern, ivied hall,
The cuckoo's April call
And cowslip-meads beside the Avon stream,
He shall not fail that other home to find
We could not leave behind!
The forms of Passion, which his fancy drew,
In us their ancient likenesses beget:
So, from our lives forever born anew,
He stands amid his own creations yet!
Here comes lean Cassius, of conventions tired;
Here, in his coach, luxurious Antony
Beside his Egypt, still of men admired;
And Brutus plans some purer liberty!
A thousand Shylocks, Jew and Christian, pass;
A hundred Hamlets, by their times betrayed;
And sweet Anne Page comes tripping o'er the grass,
And antlered Falstaff pants beneath the shade.
Here toss upon the wanton summer wind
The locks of Rosalind;
Here some gay glove the damned spot conceals
Which Lady Macbeth feels:
His ease here smiling smooth Iago takes,
And outcast Lear gives passage to his woe,
And here some foiled Reformer sadly breaks
His wand of Prospero!
In liveried splendor, side by side,
Nick Bottom and Titania ride;
And Portia, flushed with cheers of men,
Disdains dear, faithful Imogen;
And Puck, beside the form of Morse,
Stops on his forty-minute course;
And Ariel from his swinging bough
A blossom casts on Bryant's brow,
Until, as summoned from his brooding brain,
He sees his children all again,
In us, as on our lips, each fresh, immortal strain!

IV.

Be welcome, Master! In our active air
Keep the calm strength we need to learn of thee!
A steadfast anchor be
Mid passions that exhaust, and times that wear.
Thy kindred race, that scarcely knows
What power is in Repose,
What permanence in Patience, what renown
In silent faith and plodding toil of Art
That shyly works apart,
All these in thee unconsciously doth crown!

V.

The Many grow, through honor to the One
And what of loftier life we do not live,
This Form shall help to give,
In our free Pantheon of the air and sun!
Here, where the noise of Trade is loudest,
It builds a shrine august,
To show, while pomp of wealth is proudest,
How brief is gilded dust:
How Art succeeds, though long,
And o'er the tumult of the generations,
The strong, enduring spirit of the nations,
How speaks the voice of Song!
Our City, at her gateways of the sea,
Twines bay around the mural crown upon her
And wins new grace and dearer dignity,
Giving our race's Poet honor!
If such as he
Again may ever be,
And our humanity another crown
Find in some equal, late renown,
The reverence of what he was shall call it down





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