Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Descriptive Poems: I. Personal: Great Writers

Shakespeare

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

[Spoken by Mr. Garrick at the opening of the Theatre in Drury Lane, in 1747.]

WHEN Learning’s triumph o’er her barbarous foes

First reared the stage, immortal Shakespeare rose;

Each change of many-colored life he drew,

Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new:

Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,

And panting Time toiled after him in vain:

His powerful strokes presiding Truth impressed,

And unresisted Passion stormed the breast.