Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1871 (1828-1882)
“On the Site of a Mulberry-Tree.”
Planted by William Shakespeare; felled by the Rev. F. Gastrell.
This tree, here fall’n, no common birth or death
Shared with its kind. The world’s enfranchised son,
Who found the trees of Life and Knowledge one,
Here set it, frailer than his laurel-wreath.
Shall not the wretch whose hand it fell beneath
Rank also singly—the supreme unhung?
Lo! Sheppard, Turpin, pleading with black tongue,
This viler thief’s unsuffocated breath!
We’ll search thy glossary, Shakespeare! whence almost,
And whence alone, some name shall be reveal’d
For this deaf drudge, to whom no length of years
Sufficed to catch the music of the spheres;
Whose soul is carrion now,—too mean to yield
Some Starveling’s ninth allotment of a ghost.
Academy, 15 Feb. 1871.[185:1] Collected Works. Ed. W. M. Rossetti. 1886, vol. i. p. 285.