Impressions de Théâtre + 

Fabien Dei Franchi + 

To My Friend Henry Irving + 

The 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 made + 

For more august creation! frenzied Lear + 

Should at thy bidding wander on the heath + 

With the shrill fool to mock him, Romeo + 

For thee should lure his love, and desperate fear + 

Pluck Richard’s recreant dagger from its sheath⁠— + 

Thou trumpet set for Shakespeare’s lips to blow! + 

Phèdre + 

To Sarah Bernhardt + 

How vain and dull this common world must seem + 

To such a One as thou, who should’st have talked + 

At Florence with Mirandola, or walked + 

Through the cool olives of the Academe: + 

Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green stream + 

For Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have played + 

With the white girls in that Phaeacian glade + 

Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream. + 

Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay + 

Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again + 

Back 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. + 

Written at the Lyceum Theatre + 

I + 

Portia + 

To Ellen Terry + 

I marvel not Bassanio was so bold + 

To peril all he had upon the lead, + 

Or that proud Aragon bent low his head + 

Or that Morocco’s fiery heart grew cold: + 

For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold + 

Which is more golden than the golden sun + 

No woman Veronesé looked upon + 

Was half so fair as thou whom I behold. + 

Yet fairer when with wisdom as your shield + 

The sober-suited lawyer’s gown you donned, + 

And would not let the laws of Venice yield + 

Antonio’s heart to that accursèd Jew⁠— + 

O Portia! take my heart: it is thy due: + 

I think I will not quarrel with the Bond. + 

II + 

Queen Henrietta Maria + 

To Ellen Terry + 

In the lone tent, waiting for victory, + 

She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain, + 

Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain: + 

The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky, + 

War’s ruin, and the wreck of chivalry + 

To her proud soul no common fear can bring: + 

Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord the King, + 

Her soul a-flame with passionate ecstasy. + 

O Hair of Gold! O Crimson Lips! O Face + 

Made for the luring and the love of man! + 

With thee I do forget the toil and stress, + 

The loveless road that knows no resting place, + 

Time’s straitened pulse, the soul’s dread weariness, + 

My freedom, and my life republican! + 

III + 

Camma + 

To Ellen Terry + 

As one who poring on a Grecian urn + 

Scans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made, + 

God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid, + 

And for their beauty’s sake is loth to turn + 

And face the obvious day, must I not yearn + 

For many a secret moon of indolent bliss, + 

When in midmost shrine of Artemis + 

I see thee standing, antique-limbed, and stern? + 

And yet⁠—methinks I’d rather see thee play + 

That serpent of old Nile, whose witchery + 

Made Emperors drunken⁠—come, great Egypt, shake + 

Our stage with all thy mimic pageants! Nay, + 

I am grown sick of unreal passions, make + 

The world thine Actium, me thine Anthony! + 