O, cold and barren moon, tell a different tale!
'But thou, oh blessed master! dost answer all my questions,
and make it my privilege to be. Like a humble wife to the
sage, or poet, it is my triumph that I can understand and
cherish thee: like a mistress, I arm thee for the fight: like
a young daughter, I tenderly bind thy wounds. Thou art to me
beyond compare, for thou art all I want. No heavenly sweetness
of saint or martyr, no many-leaved Raphael, no golden
Plato, is anything to me, compared with thee. The infinite
Shakspeare, the stern Angelo, Dante,--bittersweet like
thee,--are no longer seen in thy presence. And, beside these
names, there are none that could vibrate in thy crystal
sphere. Thou hast all of them, and that ample surge of life
besides, that great winged being which they only dreamed of.
There is none greater than Shakspeare; he, too, is a god; but
his creations are successive; thy _fiat_ comprehends them all.
'Last summer, I met thy mood in nature, on those wide
impassioned plains flower and crag-bestrown. There, the tide
of emotion had rolled over, and left the vision of its smiles
and sobs, as I saw to-night from thee.
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