THY verse is like a cool and shady well <br /> Lying a-dream within some moss-walled close <br /> Far from the common way, where violets doze <br />In green-deep grass beside the sweet hare-bell. <br /> <br />And each wayfarer as he stoopeth there <br /> Doth spy a face that is most like his own, <br /> So weary and—ah me!—so woe-begone <br />That almost he forgetteth his deep care. <br /> <br />There is a royal restraint in thy sad rhyme, <br /> Dis-calmèd calm, and passion passionless, <br /> And mellowed is all taint of bitterness <br />Into the harmony of that still time <br /> <br />When leaves are yellowing in the sallow sun <br /> And evening’s bloom is flush across the sky, <br />When haggard summer tottereth in his run <br /> And gracious moist-eyed autumn draweth nigh. <br /> <br />O king! majestical in thy decline <br />As in thy Spring,—might such an end be mine! <br /> <br /><br /><br />George William Lewis Marshall-Hall<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-reading-shakepeare-s-sonnets/
