James Shirley: Xiv

THE DUSK of day’s decline was hard on dark When evening trembled round thy glowworm lamp That shone across her shades and dewy damp A small clear beacon whose benignant spark Was gracious yet for loiterers’ eyes to mark, Though changed the watchword of our English camp Since the outposts rang round Marlowe’s lion ramp, When thy steed’s pace went ambling round Hyde Park. And in the thickening twilight under thee Walks Davenant, pensive in the paths where he, The blithest throat that ever carolled love In music made of morning’s merriest heart, Glad Suckling, stumbled from his seat above And reeled on slippery roads of alien art.