No viewless mind! The very shape, no less,
He used to speak and smile with, move and stand!
God is most God not in his loneliness,
Unfellowed, discreationed, unrevealed,
Nor thundering on Sinai, pitiless,
Nor when the seven vials are unsealed,
But when his spirit companions with our thought
And in his fellowship our pain is healed;
And we are likest God when we are brought
Most near to all men. Bring us near to him,
The gentle, human soul whose calm might wrought
Imperious Lear and made our eyes grow dim
For Imogen,--who, though he heard the spheres
"Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubim,"
Could laugh with Falstaff and his loose compeers
And love the rascal with the same big heart
That o'er Cordelia could not stay its tears.
For still the man is greater than his art.
And though thy men and women, Shakespeare, rise
Like giants in our fancy and depart,
Thyself art more than all their masteries,
Thy wisdom more than Hamlet's questionings
Or the cold searching of Ulysses' eyes,
Thy mirth more sweet than Benedick's flouts and flings,
Thy smiling dearer than Mercutio's,
Thy dignity past that of all thy kings,
And thy enchantment more than Prospero's.
For thou couldst not have had Othello's flaw,
Not erred with Brutus,--greater, then, than those
For all their nobleness.
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