Charles Kingsley - 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.


Eversley, 1851.

Charles Kingsley

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