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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


BEFORE REREADING SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS by THOMAS STURGE MOORE

First Line: WHETHER HIS LOVES WERE MANY OR BUT TWO
Last Line: ONCE, FOREST LEAVES, THEY MURMURED ROUND HIS SOUL.
Subject(s): DRAMATISTS; PLAYS & PLAYWRIGHTS; POETRY & POETS; SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM (1564-1616);

WHETHER his loves were many or but two,
Whether his heart grew strong or bled to waste,
Whether he toyed with words as idlers do
Or some unseasoned lines betray his haste,
We enter here as to an empty house..
As pale folk from a far-off clime and date
Peep into pictured halls, where the carouse
Of mummied kings once mocked their certain fate.
We gaze at signs he saw, but only guess
How he read what we read...not bloom to fruit,
Meal to moth's wing, sight to blind eye is less
Recoverable! Time treads life underfoot:
Black, dead, these words can warm us but as coal,
Once, forest leaves, they murmured round his soul.



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