God gave him, as God gave his kind,

Freer than they from fleshly taint:

I would call such a Christ our Saint,

As I declare our Poet, him

Whose insight makes all others dim:

A thousand poets pried at life,

And only one amid the strife

Rose to be Shakespeare: each shall take

His crown, I 'd say, for the world's sake—

Though some objected—"Had we seen