Our Shakespeare now, as a man dumb-stricken,

Stands silent there on the shelf:

And my thoughts, that had song in the heart of them, sicken,

And relish not Shakespeare's self.

And my mood grows moodier than Hamlet's even,

And man delights not me,

But only the face that morn and even

My heart leapt only to see.

That my heart made merry within me seeing,

And sang as his laugh kept time:

But song finds now no pleasure in being,

And love no reason in rhyme.

326 IV

326

Mild May-blossom and proud sweet bay-flower,

What, for shame, would you have with us here?

It is not the month of the May-flower

This, but the fall of the year.

Flowers open only their lips in derision,

Leaves are as fingers that point in scorn

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