[Editor: This poem by Henry Kendall was published in Leaves from Australian Forests (1869).]
VI.
To ———
A handmaid to the Genius of thy Song
Is sweet, fair Scholarship. ’Tis she supplies
The fiery Spirit of the passioned eyes
With subtle syllables, whose notes belong
To some chief source of perfect melodies.
And, glancing through a laurelled, lordly throng
Of shining singers, lo, my vision flies
To William Shakespeare! he it is whose strong
Full flute-like music haunts thy stately Verse.
A worthy Levite of his court thou art!
One sent amongst us to defeat the curse
That binds us to the Actual. Yea, thy part,
Oh, lute-voiced lover, is to lull the heart
Of love repelled: its darkness to disperse.
Source:
Henry Kendall, Leaves from Australian Forests, Melbourne: George Robertson, 1869, page 108
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