WITH A COPY OF SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS by EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE

THIS is the holy missal Shakespeare wrote,
For friends to ponder when they grieve alone;
Within these collects his great heart would note
Its joy and fear, its ecstasy and moan;
Our strength and weakness each was felt by him;
He yearned and shrank, rejoiced and hoped and bled;
Nor ever will his sacred song be dim,
Though he himself, the Friend of Friends, is dead.
Then, on sad evenings when you think of me,
Or when the morn seems blithe, yet I not near,
Open this book, and read, and I shall be
The metre murmuring at your bended ear;
I cannot write my love with Shakespeare's art,
But the same burden weighs upon my heart.

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