Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SHAKESPEARE'S WOMEN, by CHARLES WILLIAMS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SHAKESPEARE'S WOMEN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What word to him hadst thou to tell
Last Line: O stolen novice of saint clare?
Subject(s): Dramatists; Literature; Marriage; Poetry & Poets; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); Women; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


WHAT word to him hadst thou to tell,
What answer, Lady Isabel?

Or what love-token couldst thou spare
Thy prince, O novice of Saint Clare?

Would those prayer-folded hands of thine
With royal fingers intertwine?

That purposeful and austere look
His amorous ducal glances brook?

Certes, thou ill wert satisfied
To be a Duchess as a bride;

A crown and purple robes to don
As garb of contemplation;

And for Vienna's shout and stare
To change the holy fasts of Clare.

But dared thy maker part thee then
From Hero, Julia, Imogen,—

They each to partner with such mate,
Thou to right nuptials consecrate?

What more than they didst thou deserve
That from his custom he should swerve,

Nor, as his wont was, controvert
With a like husband thy desert

To them who by thy sisters go,
Posthumus, Proteus, Claudio,

Each pleased on a submissive breast?
Be thy Vincentio likewise blest!

In this thing was his justice blind?
Contented was that secret mind

When the princesses of his heart
So condescended to their part?

Sufficed it for him if he said:
'Thus, and to this man, she was wed;

'All wrongèd lives will I accord
In giving unto each a lord'—

Bertram, Bassanio wedded thus,
Leontes and Lysimachus?

(Hardly at best he spared to tell
Of Romeo, France, or Florizel.)

Unwise to dream he never knew
What his deliberate hand would do!

Rather, while of the crowd's applause
Such nuptials served him well as cause,

He gave, to smite the eyes that see,
Passion's accustomed irony,

When each pure flame of love was lit
In the horn lantern made for it:

And how thy doom then should he spare,
O stolen novice of Saint Clare?





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