[Lyric] Poet and Actress (Clarence Clough Buel)

When Avon's Bard his sweetest music scored,
A woman's vision with the numbers blent;
Each to the other equal beauty lent
As weaving fancy robed the form adored.
O Poet, didst thou see upon the board
Eye-filling Rosalind, whose playful bent
Suffused thy lines? Juliet, all passion-spent?
Viola's sweet self, and Imogen's restored?
'Twas thine to give the music-mated lines,
But Heaven alone empowers the counterpart
To walk in splendor where such genius shines.
Thrice happy we, blest heirs of dual art
To own as mother-tongue Will Shakespeare's writ,
To live when kindling Neilson voices it.