By the North Sea · December's Snow · Shakespeare's Expostulation

By the North Sea

Her cheek was wet with North Sea spray,
     We walked where tide and shingle
       meet;
The long waves rolled from far away
     To purr in ripples at our feet.
And as we walked it seemed to me
     That three old friends had met that
       day,
The old, old sky, the old, old sea,
     And love, which is as old as they.

Out seaward hung the brooding mist
     We saw it rolling, fold on fold,
And marked the great Sun alchemist
     Turn all its leaden edge to gold,
Look well, look well, oh lady mine,
     The gray below, the gold above,
For so the grayest life may shine
     All golden in the light of love.

December's Snow

The bloom is on the May once more,
     The chestnut buds have burst anew;
But, darling, all our springs are o'er,
     'Tis winter still for me and you.
We plucked Life's blossoms long ago
What's left is but December's snow.

But winter has its joys as fair,
     The gentler joys, aloof, apart;
The snow may lie upon our hair
     But never, darling, in our heart.
Sweet were the springs of long ago
But sweeter still December's snow.

Yes, long ago, and yet to me
     It seems a thing of yesterday;
The shade beneath the willow tree,
     The word you looked but feared to say.
Ah! when I learned to love you so
What recked we of December's snow?

But swift the ruthless seasons sped
     And swifter still they speed away.
What though they bow the dainty head
     And fleck the raven hair with gray?
The boy and girl of long ago
Are laughing through the veil of snow.

Shakespeare's Expostulation

     Masters, I sleep not quiet in my grave,
There where they laid me, by the Avon
     shore,
In that some crazy wights have set it forth
By arguments most false and fanciful,
Analogy and far-drawn inference,
That Francis Bacon, Earl of Verulam
(A man whom I remember in old days,
A learned judge with sly adhesive palms,
To which the suitor's gold was wont to
stick) —
That this same Verulam had writ the plays
Which were the fancies of my frolic brain.
What can they urge to dispossess the crown
Which all my comrades and the whole loud
     world
Did in my lifetime lay upon my brow?
Look straitly at these arguments and see
How witless and how fondly slight they be.
     Imprimis, they have urged that, being
       born
In the mean compass of a paltry town,
I could not in my youth have trimmed
     my mind
To such an eagle pitch, but must be found,
Like the hedge sparrow, somewhere near
       the ground.
     Bethink you, sirs, that though I was
       denied
The learning which in colleges is found,
Yet may a hungry brain still find its fo
Wherever books may lie or men may be;
And though perchance by Isis or by Cam
The meditative, philosophic plant
May best luxuriate; yet some would say
That in the task of limning mortal life
A fitter preparation might be made
Beside the banks of Thames. And then
       again,
If I be suspect, in that I was not
A fellow of a college, how, I pray,
Will Jonson pass, or Marlowe, or the rest,
Whose measured verse treads with as
     proud a gait
As that which was my own? Whence did
     they suck
This honey that they stored? Can you
     recite
The vantages which each of these has had
And I had not? Or is the argument
That my Lord Verulam hath written all,
And covers in his wide-embracing self
The stolen fame of twenty smaller men?
     You prate about my learning. I
       would urge
My want of learning rather as a proof
That I am still myself. Have I not traced
A seaboard to Bohemia, and made
The cannons roar a whole wide century
Before the first was forged? Think you,
     then,
That he, the ever-learned Verulam,
Would have erred thus? So may my very
     faults
In their gross falseness prove that I am true,
And by that falseness gender truth in you.
And what is left? They say that they
     have found
A script, wherein the writer tells my Lord
He is a secret poet. True enough!
But surely now that secret is o'er past.
Have you not read his poems? Know
     you not
That in our day a learned chancellor
Might better far dispense unjustest law
Than be suspect of such frivolity
As lies in verse? Therefore his poetry
Was secret. Now that he is gone
'Tis so no longer. You may read his verse,
And judge if mine be better or be worse:
Read and pronounce! The meed of
     praise is thine;
But still let his be his and mine be mine.
     I say no more; but how can you for-
       swear
Outspoken Jonson, he who knew me well;
So, too, the epitaph which still you read?
Think you they faced my sepulchre with
     lies —
Gross lies, so evident and palpable
That every townsman must have wot of it,
And not a worshipper within the church
But must have smiled to see the marbled
     fraud?
Surely this touches you? But if by chance
My reasoning still leaves you obdurate,
I'll lay one final plea. I pray you look
On my presentment, as it reaches you.
My features shall be sponsors for my fame;
My brow shall speak when Shakespeare's
     voice is dumb,
And be his warrant in an age to come.