More Songs From Vagabondia
Paracelsus, Till nothing else is Of worth at all. Del Sarto's vision Is our own mission, And art's ambition Is God's own call. 

  Through all the seasons, You gave us reasons For splendid treasons To doubt and fear; Bade no foot falter, 

 Though weaklings palter, And friendships alter From year to year. 

 Since first I sought you, Found you and bought you, Hugged you and brought you Home from Cornhill, While some upbraid you, And some parade you, Nine years have made you My master still. 

SHAKESPEARE HIMSELF: FOR THE UNVEILING OF MR. PARTRIDGE'S STATUE OF THE POET.

 The body is no prison where we lie Shut out from our true heritage of sun; It is the wings wherewith the soul may fly. Save through this flesh so scorned and spat upon, No ray of light had reached the caverned mind, No thrill of pleasure through the life had run, No love of nature or of humankind, Were it but love of self, had stirred the heart To its first deed. Such freedom as we find, We find but through its service, not apart. And as an eagle's wings upbear him higher Than Andes or Himalaya, and chart Rivers and seas beneath; so our desire, With more celestial members yet, may soar Into the space of empyrean fire, Still bodied but more richly than before. 

 The body is the man; what lurks behind Through it alone unveils itself. Therefore We are not wrong, who seek to keep in mind The form and feature of the mighty dead. So back of all the giving is divined The giver, back of all things done or said The man himself in elemental speech Of flesh and bone and sinew utterèd. 

 This is thy language, Sculpture. Thine to reach Beneath all thoughts, all feelings, all desires, To that which thinks and lives and loves, and teach The world the primal selfhood of its sires, Its heroes and its lovers and its gods. So shall Apollo flame in marble fires, The mien of Zeus suffice before he nods, So Gautama in ivory dream out The calm of Time's untrammelled periods, So Sigurd's lips be in themselves a shout. 

 Mould us our Shakespeare, sculptor, in the form His comrades knew, rare Ben and all the rout That found the taproom of the Mermaid warm With wit and wine and fellowship, the face Wherein the men he chummed with found a charm To make them love him; carve for us the grace That caught Anne Hathaway in Shottery-side, The hand that clasped Southampton's in the days Ere that dark dame, of passion and of pride Burned in his 
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