Studies in Song
Again the riotous heart

That mocked at mercy's tongue and manhood's knee:

And oped the cell where kinglike death

Hung o'er her brows discrowned who bare Elizabeth.

46.

Toward Spenser or toward Bacon proud or kind

He bared the heart of Essex, twain and one,

For the base heart that soiled the starry mind

Stern, for the father in his child undone

Soft as his own toward children, stamped and signed

With their sweet image visibly set on

As by God's hand, clear as his own designed

The likeness radiant out of ages gone

That none may now destroy

Of that high Roman boy

Whom Julius and Cleopatra saw their son

True-born of sovereign seed,

Foredoomed even thence to bleed,

The stately grace of bright Cæsarion,

The head unbent, the heart unbowed,


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