FABIEN DEI FRANCHI
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HE silent room, the heavy creeping shade,The dead that travel fast, the opening door,The murdered brother rising through the floor,The ghost’s white fingers on thy shoulders laid,And then the lonely duel in the glade,The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore,Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o’er,—These things are well enough,—but thou wert madeFor more august creation! frenzied LearShould at thy bidding wander on the heathWith the shrill fool to mock him, RomeoFor thee should lure his love, and desperate fearPluck Richard’s recreant dagger from its sheath—Thou trumpet set for Shakespeare’s lips to blow! PHÈDRETO SARAH BERNHARDT HOW vain and dull this common world must seemTo such a One as thou, who should’st have talkedAt Florence with Mirandola, or walkedThrough the cool olives of the Academe:Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green streamFor Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have playedWith the white girls in that Phæacian gladeWhere grave Odysseus wakened from his dream. Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clayHeld thy wan dust, and thou hast come againBack to this common world so dull and vain,For thou wert weary of the sunless day,The heavy fields of scentless asphodel,The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.
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