Classic Poem

A memory, like a zephyr, wandered through
The colonnades of Heaven and, at request,
Will Shakespeare reared a cloudy stage and set
His plays — sore shamed they were — once more to do
Their ancient office. All the angels praised,
But in the shelter of their wings confessed
One to another that the tricksy sport,
Frenzies and furies and the shock of fray,
Perplexed their white, serene intelligence.
The highest ranks of the redeemed stood dazed,
But half remembering their mortality,
Rapture of love, pain's fierce reality,
In those far aeons ere earth flamed away.
Only the hardly-saved, the devil-torn,
The ruddy fringe of that ethereal court,
Saints by the hairsbreadth, felt their lashes wet,
Sobbed out and shook when stormy Lear went crazed,
Threw asphodels to Rosalind, grew tense
With Hamlet's terror and, at end, their bliss
Sweeter within them for the taste of this,
Surprised their harpstrings with a gold acclaim,
A paean for that misty English morn
While yet Time dwelt with Space, when softly came
The miracle, — when, an unheeded name,
Shakespeare was born.