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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  Shakespeare

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

Descriptive Poems: I. Personal: Great Writers

Shakespeare

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

From “Prologue”

  • [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.