Charles Sprague, 1824 (1791-1875)
Who now shall grace the glowing throne,
Where, all unrivall’d, all alone,
Bold Shakespeare sat, and look’d creation through,
The minstrel monarch of the worlds he drew?
That throne is cold—that lyre in death unstrung,
On whose proud note delighted Wonder hung.
Yet old Oblivion, as in wrath he sweeps,
One spot shall spare—the grave where Shakespeare sleeps.
Rulers and ruled in common gloom may lie,
But Nature’s laureate bards shall never die.
Art’s chisell’d boast and glory’s trophied shore
Must live in numbers or can live no more.
While sculptured Jove some nameless waste may claim,
Still roars the Olympic car in Pindar’s fame:
Troy’s doubtful walls, in ashes pass’d away,
Yet frown on Greece in Homer’s deathless lay;
Rome, slowly sinking in her crumbling fanes,
Stands all immortal in her Maro’s strains;
So, too, yon giant empress of the isles,
On whose broad sway the sun for ever smiles,
To Time’s unsparing rage one day must bend,
And all her triumphs in her Shakespeare end!
O thou! to whose creative power
We dedicate the festal hour,
While Grace and Goodness round the altar stand,
Learning’s anointed train, and Beauty’s rose-lipp’d band—
Realms yet unborn, in accents now unknown,
Thy song shall learn, and bless it for their own.
Deep in the west, as Independence roves,
His banners planting round the land he loves,
Where Nature sleeps in Eden’s infant grace,
In Time’s full hour shall spring a glorious race:
Thy name, thy verse, thy language shall they bear,
And deck for thee the vaulted temple there.
Our Roman-hearted fathers broke
Thy parent empire’s galling yoke,
But thou, harmonious monarch of the mind,
Around their sons a gentler chain shall bind;
Still o’er our land shall Albion’s sceptre wave,
And what her mighty Lion lost, her mightier Swan shall save.
Prize Ode recited at the representation of the Shakespeare Jubilee, Boston, February 13, 1824.