England and Yesterday

<h2>A FOOT-NOTE TO A FAMOUS LYRIC.</h2> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">True love’s own talisman, which here</div> <div class="verse">Shakespeare and Sidney failed to teach,</div> <div class="verse">A steel-and-velvet Cavalier</div> <div class="verse">Gave to our Saxon speech:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Chief miracle of theme and touch</div> <div class="verse">That many envy and adore:</div> <div class="verse"><i>I could not love thee, dear, so much,</i></div> <div class="verse"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</SPAN></span><i>Loved I not Honour more</i>.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">No critic born since Charles was king,</div> <div class="verse">But sighed in smiling, as he read:</div> <div class="verse">“Here’s theft of the supremest thing</div> <div class="verse">A poet might have said!”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Young knight and wit and beau, who won</div> <div class="verse">Mid war’s upheaval, ladies’ praise,</div> <div class="verse">Was’t well of you, ere you had done,</div> <div class="verse">To blight our modern bays?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">O yet to you, whose random hand</div> <div class="verse">Struck from the dark whole gems like these,</div> <div class="verse">(Archaic beauty, never planned</div> <div class="verse">Nor reared by wan degrees,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Which leaves an artist poor, and Art</div> <div class="verse">An earldom richer all her years;)</div> <div class="verse">To you, dead on your shield apart,</div> <div class="verse">Be <i>Ave</i>! passed in tears.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">’Twas virtue’s breath inflamed your lyre;</div> <div class="verse">Heroic from the heart it ran;</div> <div class="verse">Nor for the shedding of such fire</div> <div class="verse">Lives, since, a manlier man.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And till your strophe sweet and bold</div> <div class="verse">So lovely aye, so lonely long,</div> <div class="verse">Love’s self outdo, dear Lovelace! hold</div> <div class="verse">The parapets of song.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />