Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Данте Габриэль Россетти)
On Certain Elizabethan Revivals
O RUFF-EMBASTIONED vast Elizabeth, Bush to these bushel-bellied casks of wine, Home-growth, 'tis true, but rank as turpentine— What would we with such skittle-plays at death? Say, must we watch these brawlers' brandished lathe, Or to their reeking wit our ears incline, Because all Castaly flowed crystalline In gentle Shakspeare's modulated breath? What! must our drama with the rat-pit vie, Nor the scene close while one is left to kill? Shall this be poetry? And thou—thou man Of blood, thou cannibalic Caliban, What shall be said of thee? A poet?—Fie! “An honourable murderer, if you will.”
Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s other poems:
- The House of Life. Sonnet 17. Beauty’s Pageant
- The House of Life. Sonnet 35. The Lamp’s Shrine
- The House of Life. Sonnet 92. The Sun’s Shame – 1
- The House of Life. Sonnet 21. Love-Sweetness
- The House of Life. Sonnet 50. Willowwood – 2
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