SONNET

Oh, thou hadst been a wife for Shakspeare's self!

No head, save some world-genius, ought to rest

Above the treasures of that perfect breast,

Or nightly draw fresh light from those keen stars

Through which thy soul awes ours: yet thou art bound —

O waste of nature!— to a craven hound;

To shameless lust, and childish greed of pelf;

Athene to a Satyr: was that link

Forged by The Father's hand? Man's reason bars

The bans which God allowed.— Ay, so we think:

Forgetting, thou hadst weaker been, full blest,

Than thus made strong by suffering; and more great

In martyrdom, than throned as Caesar's mate.