Classic Poem

This is for thee, dear Bard of Avon,
Wherever thou dost dwell,
Fain would I think thee safe in heaven,
Yet must thou be in hell.
Sad messages are swiftly borne,
And this which now I rhyme,
Be thou or blest or sad forlorne,
Will find thee out in time.

I pray thee, then, when thou hast read
What I shall here set down,
That thou wilt undeceive the dead
And abdicate thy crown.
Know thou: In this keen-whetted age
We read — so wise we've grown —
The lines that glow upon thy page
To prove them not thine own.

For me — when I recall thy prayer,
Thy trusting soul's last token,
" Good Friend for Iesus SAKE for beare, "
I feel like one heart-broken.
We heave all gods now from their thrones
And — loathly thou shalt hear it —
Though we have not yet digged thy bones,
We have not spared thy spirit.

With little bodkins now we probe
And prove the world mistaken;
Thou must take off thy kingly robe,
We choose the shade of Bacon.
Thy sonnets too — they are not thine,
How well we know thy folly,
Thy long worn wreath thou must resign
To crown Sir Walter Raleigh.

I see — when to the dead is known
What we now know so well —
How thou wilt walk sad and alone
Thy field of asphodel.
But Lethe flows! Drink deep, drink deep!
From those forgetful pools,
Forget to smile — forget to weep —
Drink deep — dear shade — drink deep, drink deep,
So that thy heart may always keep
This secret in thy endless sleep;
We are a race of fools.