Classic Poem

Mine eyes oft drink this magic poesy,
Essential wine of Shakespeare's many a mood,
Deep with the rosy tinct of love imbued,
Yet bitter-sweet with jealous agony.—
Of all mankind himself epitome,
Who breathed these musings felt and understood
“All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,”
Compact of passions. Yet supreme was he,
Like to a god, undaunted by the vast
Sublimity of Nature and of Time,
“Not wondering at the present nor the past”;
For him the world was in perennial prime,
Its pomps, its pageants, but as scenes recast,
Living and moving in his powerful rhyme.