The New Hampshire Gazette

[From the New-Yorker.]

SHAKSPEARE.—BY CHARLES SPRAGUE.

Then Shakspeare rose!
Across the trembling strings
His daring hand he flings,
And lo! a new creation glows!

There, clustering round, submissive to his will,
Fate's vassal train his high commands fulfill.
Madness, with his frightful scream,—
Vengeance, leaning on his lance,—
Avarice, with his blade and beam,—
Hatred, blasting with a glance;
Remorse that weeps, and Rage that roars,
And Jealousy that dotes, but dooms,—and murders, yet adores.
Mirth, his face with sunbeams lit,
Waking Laughter's merry swell,
Arm in arm with fresh-eyed Wit,
That waves his tinkling lash, while Folly shakes his bell.

From the feudal tower pale Terror rushing,
Where the prophet bird's wail
Dies along the dull gale,
And the sleeping monarch's blood is gushing.
Despair, that haunts the gurgling stream.
Kissed by the virgin moon's cold beam,
Where some lost maid wild chaplet wreathes,
And, swan-like, there her own dirge breathes,—
Then, broken-hearted, sinks to rest
Beneath the bubbling wave that shrouds her maniac breast.

Young Love, with eye of tender gloom,
Now drooping o'er the hallowed tomb,
Where his plighted victims lie—
Where they met, but met to die;
And now, when crimson buds are sleeping,
Through the dewy arbor peeping,—
Where beauty's child, the frowning world forgot,
To Youth's devoted tale is listening,—
Rapture on her dark lash glistening,
While fairies leave their cowslip cells and guard the happy spot.

Thus rise the phantom throng,
Obedient to their master's song,
And lead, in willing chain, the wondering soul along.

For other worlds, war's great one sighed in vain:
O'er other worlds, see Shakspeare rove and reign!
The rapt magician of his own wild lay,
Earth and her tribes his mystic wand obey:
Old Ocean trembles,—thunder cracks the skies.—
Air teems with shapes, and tell-tale spectres rise;
Night's paltering hags their fearful orgies keep,
And faithless Guilt unseals the lip of Sleep.
Time yields his trophies up, and Death restores
The mouldered victims of his voiceless shores.
The fireside legend, and the faded page,—
The crime that cursed—the deed that blessed an age—
All, all come forth—the good to charm and cheer,—
To scourge bold Vice, and start the generous tear;
With pictured Folly, gazing fools to shame,
And guide young Glory's foot along the path of Fame.