Garrick’s Ode¹

To what blest genius of the isle,

Shall Gratitude her tribute pay,

Decree the festive day,

Erect the statue, and devote the pile?

Do not your sympathetic hearts accord,

To own the “bosom’s lord?”²

’Tis he! ’tis he! —that demi-god!

Who Avon’s flow’ry margin trod,

While sportive Fancy round him flew,

Where Nature led him by the hand,

Instructed him in all she knew,

And gave him absolute command!

’Tis he! ’tis he!

“The god of our idolatry!”³

To him the song, the Edifice we raise,

He merits all our wonder, all our praise!

Yet ere impatient joy break forth,

In sounds that lift the soul from earth;

And to our spell-bound minds impart

Some faint idea of his magic art;

Let awful silence still the air!

From the dark cloud, the hidden light

Bursts tenfold bright!

Prepare! prepare! prepare!

Now swell the choral song,⁴

Roll the full tide of harmony along;

Let Rapture sweep the trembling strings,

And Fame expanding all her wings,

With all her trumpet-tongues proclaim,⁵

The lov’d, rever’d, immortal name!

SHAKESPEARE! SHAKESPEARE! SHAKESPEARE!

Let th’inchanting sound,

From Avon’s shores rebound:

Thro’ the Air,

Let it bear,

The precious freight the envious nations round!

CHORUS

Swell the choral song,

Roll the tide of harmony along,

Let Rapture sweep the strings,

Fame expand her wings,

With her trumpet-tongues proclaim,

The lov’d, rever’d, immortal name!

SHAKESPEARE! SHAKESPEARE! SHAKESPEARE!

AIR⁶

I

Sweetest bard that ever sung,

Nature’s glory, Fancy’s child;

Never sure did witching tongue,

Warble forth such wood-notes wild!⁷

II

Come each Muse, and sister Grace,

Loves and Pleasures hither come;

Well you know this happy place,

Avon’s banks were once your home.

III

Bring the laurel, bring the flow’rs,

Songs of triumph to him raise;⁸

He united all your pow’rs,

All uniting, sing his praise!

Tho’ Philip’s fam’d unconqur’d son,⁹

Had ev’ry blood-stain’d laurel won;

He sigh’d—that his creative word,

(Like that which rules the skies,)

Could not bid other nations rise,

To glut his yet unsated sword:

But when our SHAKESPEARE’S matchless pen,

Like Alexander’s sword, had done with men;

He heav’d no sigh, he made no moan,

Not limited to human kind,

He sir’d his wonder-teeming mind,

Rais’d other worlds, and beings of his own!¹⁰

AIR¹¹

When Nature, smiling, hail’d his birth,

To him unbounded pow’r was given;

The whirlwind’s wing to sweep the sky,

“The frenzy-rowling eye,

To glance from heav’n to earth,

From earth to heaven!”¹²

O from his muse of fire¹³

Could but one spark be caught,

Then might these humble strains aspire¹⁴

To tell the wonders he has wrought,

To tell, —how sitting on his magic throne,

Unaided and alone,

In dreadful state,

The subject passions round him wait;

Who tho’ unchain’d, and raging there,

He checks, inflames, or turns their mad career;

With that superior skill,

Which winds the fiery steed at will,

He gives the aweful word—

And they, all foaming, trembling, own him for their Lord.¹⁵

With these his slaves he can control,

Or charm the soul;

So realized are all his golden dreams,

Of terror, pity, love, and grief,

Tho’ conscious that the vision only seems,

The woe-struck mind finds no relief:

Ingratitude would drop the tear,

Cold-blooded age take fire,

To see the thankless children of old Lear,

Spurn at their king, and sire!

With his our reason grows wild!

What nature hath disjoin’d,

The poet’s pow’r combined,

Madness and age, ingratitude and child.

Ye guilty, lawless tribe,

Escap’d from punishment, by art or bribe,

At Shakespeare’s bar appear!

No bribing, shuffling there—

His genius, like a rushing flood,

Cannot be withstood,

Out bursts the penitential tear!¹⁶

The look appall’d, the crime reveals,

The marble-hearted monster feels,¹⁷

Whose hand is stain’d with blood.

SEMI-CHORUS

When law is weak, and justice fails,

The poet holds the sword and scales.

AIR¹⁸

Though crimes from death and torture fly,

The swifter muse,

Their flight pursues,

Guilty mortals more than die!

They live indeed, but live to feel

The scourge and wheel,

“On the torture of the mind they lie;”¹⁹

Should harrass’d nature sink to rest,

The Poet wakes the scorpion in the breast,

Guilty mortals more than die!

When our Magician, more inspired,

By charms, and spells, and incantations fir’d,

Exerts his most tremendous pow’r;

The thunder growls, the heavens low’r,

And to his darken’d throne repair,

The Demons of the deep, and Spirits of the air!

But soon those horrors pass away,

Thro’ storms and night breaks forth the day:

He smiles, —they vanish into air!

The buskin’d warriors disappear!

Mute the trumpets, mute the drums,

The scene is chang’d—Thalia comes,

Leading the nymph Euphrosyne,²⁰

Goddess of joy and liberty!

She and her sisters, hand in hand,

Link’d to a num’rous frolick band,

With roses and with myrtle crown’d,

O’er the green velvet lightly bound,

Circling the Monarch of th’inchanted land!

AIR²¹

I

Wild, frantick with pleasure,

They trip it in measure,

To bring him their treasure,

The treasure of joy.

II

How gay is the measure,

How sweet is the pleasure,

How great is the treasure,

The treasure of joy.

III

Like roses fresh blowing,

Their dimpled-cheeks glowing,

His mind is overflowing;

A treasure of joy!

IV

His rapture perceiving,

They smile while they’re giving,

He smiles at receiving,

A treasure of joy.

With kindling cheeks, and sparkling eyes,

Surrounded thus, the Bard in transport dies;

The little Loves, like bees,

Clust’ring and climbing up his knees,

His brows with roses bind;

While Fancy, Wit, and Humour spread

Their wings, and hover round his head,

Impregnating his mind.

Which teeming soon, as soon brought forth,

Not a tiny spurious birth,

But out a mountain came,

A mountain of delight!

LAUGHTER roar’d out to see the sight,

And FALSTAFF was his name!

With sword and shield he, puffing, strides;

The joyous revel-rout

Receive him with a shout,

And modest Nature holds her sides:²²

No single pow’r the deed had done,

But great and small,

Wit, Fancy, Humour, Whim, and Jest,

The huge, misshapen heap impress’d;

And lo—SIR JOHN!

A compound of ’em all,

A comic world in ONE.

AIR²³

A world where all pleasures abound,

So fruitful the earth,

So quick to bring forth,

And the world too is wicked and round.

As the well-teeming earth,

With rivers and show’rs,

Will smiling bring forth

Her fruits and her flow’rs;

So FALSTAFF will never decline;

Still fruitful and gay,

He moistens his clay,

And his rain and his rivers are wine;

Of the world he has all, but its care;

No load, but of flesh, will he bear;

He laughs off his pack,

Takes a cup of old sack,

And away with all sorrow and care.

Like the rich rainbow’s various dyes,

Whose circle sweeps o’er earth and skies,

The heav’n-born muse appears;

Now in the brightest colors gay,

Now quench’d in show’rs, she fades away,

Now blends her smiles and tears.

Sweet Swan of Avon! ever may thy stream

Of tuneful numbers be the darling theme;

Not Thames himself, who in his silver course

Triumphant rolls along,

Britannia’s riches and her force,

Shall more harmonious flow in song.

O had those bards, who charm the list’ning shore

Of Cam and Isis, tun’d their classic lays,²⁴

And from their full and precious store,

Vouchsaf’d to fairy-haunted Avon praise!

(Like to that kind bounteous hand,²⁵

Which lately gave the ravish’d eyes

Of Stratford swains

A rich command,

Of widen’d river, lengthen’d plains,

And opening skies)

Nor Greek, nor Roman streams would flow along,

More sweetly clear, or more sublimely strong,

Nor thus a shepherd’s feeble notes reveal,

At one the weakest numbers, and the warmest zeal.

AIR

I

Thou soft-flowing Avon, by thy silver stream,

Of things more than mortal, sweet Shakespear would dream,

The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed,

For hallow’d the turf is which pillow’d his head.

II

The love-stricken maiden, the soft-sighing swain,

Here rove without danger, and sigh without pain,

The sweet bud of beauty, no blight shall here dread,

For hallow’d the turf is which pillow’d his head.

III

Here youth shall be fam’d, for their love, and their truth,

And chearful old age, feel the spirit of youth;

For the raptures of fancy here poets shall tread,

For hallow’d the turf is that pillow’d his head.

IV

Flow on, silver Avon, in song ever flow,

Be the swans on thy bosom still whiter than snow,

Ever full be thy stream, like his fame may it spread,

And the turf ever hallow’d which pillow’d his head.

Tho’ bards with envy-aching eyes,

Behold a tow’ring eagle rise,

And would his flight retard;

Yet each to Shakespeare’s genius bows,

Each weaves a garland for his brows

To crown th’ heaven-distinguish’d Bard.

Nature had form’d him on her noblest plan,

And to the genius join’d the feeling man.

What tho’ with more than mortal art,

Like Neptune he directs the storm,

Lets loose like winds the passions of the heart,

To wreck the human form;

Tho’ from his mind rush forth, the Demons to destroy,

His heart ne’er knew but love, and gentleness, and joy.

AIR²⁶

More gentle than the southern gale,

Which softly fans the blossom’d vale,

And gathers on its balmy wing,

The fragrant treasures of the spring,

Breathing delight on all it meets,

“And giving, as it steals, the sweets.”

Look down blest SPIRIT from above,

With all thy wonted gentleness and love;

And as the wonders of thy pen,

By heav’n inspir’d,

To virtue sir’d,

The charm’d, astonish’d, sons of men!

With no reproach, even now, thou view’st thy work,

To nature sacred as to truth,

Where no alluring mischiefs lurk,

To taint the mind of youth.

Still to thy native spot thy smiles extend,

And as thou gav’st it fame, that fame defend;

And may no sacrilegious hand

Near Avon’s banks be found,

To dare to parcel out the land,

And limit Shakespear’s hallow’d ground.²⁷

For ages free, still be it unconfin’d,

As broad, and general, as thy boundless mind.

Can British gratitude delay,

To him the glory of this isle,

To give the festive day

The song, the statue, and devoted pile?

To him the first of poets, best of men?

“We ne’er shall look upon his like again!”²⁸

DUETT

Shall the hero laurels gain,

For ravag’d fields, and thousands slain?

And shall his brows no laurels bind,

Who charms to virtue humankind?

CHORUS

We will, —his brows with laurel bind,

Who charms to virtue human kind:

Raise the pile, the statue raise,

Sing immortal Shakespeare’s praise!

The song will cease, the stone decay,

But his Name,

And undiminish’d fame,

Shall never, never pass away.

 

 

 

 

1 An Ode upon Dedicating a Building, and Erecting a Statue, to Shakespeare, at Stratford upon Avon. By D.G. (London: printed for T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, 1769). Copy texts: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Misc. Poems 48; and British Library (hereafter BL), English Short Title Catalogue number T42012.

2 From Romeo and Juliet, 5.1.3—“My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne.”

3 This phrase, used by Garrick and by others to describe Garrick’s relationship to Shakespeare, derives from a line in Romeo and Juliet: “Do not swear at all. / Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, / Which is the god of my idolatry” (2.2.118–20). As Garrick wrote to Jean Suard, a French journalist, in 1765, “I will not despair of seeing you in my temple of Shakespeare, confessing your infidelity, and bowing your head to the god of my idolatry, as he himself well expresses it.” See David Garrick, The Letters of David Garrick, ed. David M. Little and George M. Kahrl (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), 2:463.

4 The BL copy text contains numerous handwritten marginal notes by an unknown author, composed primarily of attributions and rewritten lines, the latter reflecting the personal preferences of a private reader or perhaps the notes of an audience member marking alterations to the printed text made by Garrick in performance. Here, the line has been revised to read “Now swell at once the choral song,” a revision that, through the addition of two syllables, makes the line conform to the octameter that constitutes much of this verse.

5 Adapted from Macbeth, 1.7.19–20—“Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against / The deep damnation of his taking-off.”

6 Marginal note in BL copy text reads “Mr. Baddely.” Robert Baddeley (1733–1794) was a longstanding member of the Drury Lane company.

7 An appropriation from John Milton’s L’Allegro (published 1645): “Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child / Warble his native wood-notes wild.”

8 Much of this Air bears similarity to the third part of Handel’s Judas Maccabeus (1746)—“See, the Conqu’ring Hero Comes”—libretto by Thomas Morell, including lines such as “Myrtle wreaths and roses twine / to deck the hero’s brow divine”; “Songs of triumph to him sing!”; “The laurel bring.”

9 A reference to Alexander the Great (356–323 BC). His father was Philip II of Macedon.

10 In October 1769, Charles Macklin wrote to Garrick to critique the ode and raise numerous poetical quibbles, including a long passage on this verse in which Macklin objected to the phrase “wonder-teeming mind” and argued (according to Garrick) that he had “heard of raising Cabbages, etc but never of worlds before.” In answer, Garrick quoted Hamlet, 5.1.269–70, “Conjures the wand’ring stars and makes them stand / Like wonder-wounded hearers?” as well as Milton’s Paradise Lost, book 12, lines 547–50: “Raise / From the conflagrant mass, purg’d and refin’d / New Heav’ns, new Earth, Ages of endless date / Founded in righteousness and peace and love.” “These are not Cabbages or cucumbers,” wrote Garrick (Letters, 2:672).

11 A marginal annotation to the BL copy text reads “Vernon.” Joseph Vernon (1731?–1782) was an actor, singer, and composer.

12 A reworking of Theseus’s lines in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, / Doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven” (5.1.12–13).

13 This invokes the opening lines of the prologue to Henry V: “O, for a muse of fire that would ascend / The brightest heaven of invention!”

14 A handwritten note in the BL copy text revises this line to read: “That might the strains inspire,” seemingly with the purpose of making the line conform to the hexameter of the previous two lines.

15 BL copy text revises this line to read “’Tis done; they pause; and own him for their Lord.”

16 This echoes Two Gentlemen of Verona, 2.4.135–36—“With bitter fasts, with penitential groans, / With nightly tears and daily heart-sore sighs.”

17 This echoes King Lear, 1.4.270—“Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend / More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child.”

18 Marginalia in BL copy text reads “Champness.” Samuel Thomas Champness (d. 1803) was an actor and singer.

19 This echoes Macbeth, 3.2.22–25: “Better be with the dead, / Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace, / Than on the torture of the mind to lie / In restless ecstasy.”

20 In classical Greek mythology, Thalia is the muse of Comedy; Euphrosyne (also known as Euthymia) was one of the three Graces associated with mirth and joy. The passage appears to borrow from Milton’s L’Allegro, lines 12–18: “But com thou Goddes fair and free / in Heav’n ycleap’s Euphrosyne, / And by men, heart-easing Mirth, / Whom lovely Venus at a birth / With two sister Graces more / To Ivy-crowned Bacchus bore; / Or whether (as som Sager sing) / The frolick Wind that breathes the Spring.”

21 Marginalia in BL copy text reads “Miss Radley.” Eleanor Radley (later Fitzgerald, d. 1772) was a singer and actress. This song, “The Treasure of Joy,” bears similarities to one of the choruses from John Dryden’s poem “Alexander’s Feast or the Power of Music; An Ode in Honour of St. Cecilia’s Day” (1697), an ode originally set to music: “Bacchus’ blessings are a treasure, / Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure; / Rich the treasure, / Sweet the pleasure, / Sweet is pleasure after pain.”

22 This is suggestive of Milton’s L’Allegro, line 32—“And Laughter holding both his sides.”

23 Marginalia in the BL copy text reads “Mr. Vernon.” See note 11, above.

24 Cam and Isis: rivers running through the university towns of Cambridge and Oxford, respectively. Garrick had initially sought a university poet to pen the ode, but finding no takers, had adopted the task himself. “Longinus,” the anonymous author of a series of scathing critiques of the ode published in October and November 1769 (who was possibly Macklin), doubts that Garrick was truly sincere in his search for an author other than himself: “Let him say what reward was offered to any others, out of the immense sums which he gained by Shakespeare, for the best Ode that should be produced on the occasion of this Jubilee. Had this been done without success, he might have had some excuse for undertaking it himself. But he well knows he did not mean to share with any one, any part of the expected glory which was to arise from this memorable project. He would share nothing but the loss upon the ill-judged expence attending the execution of it, which he liberally allowed some of the unfortunate artisans, concerned in the undertaking, to divide amongst them” (Anon., Anti-Midas: A Jubilee Preservative From Unclassical, Ignorant, False, and Invidious Criticism. [London, 1769], 33).

25 An asterisk appears in the copy texts directing the reader to a footnote that reads: “The D—— of D——, with the concurrence of Mr. B——y, most generously ordered a great number of Trees to be cut down, to open the river Avon for the Jubilee.” The men referred to are the Duke of Dorset and Dionysus Bradley; see chapter 3, page 49.

26 Marginalia in the BL copy text reads “Mr. Baddely.” See note 6, above.

27 An asterisk appears in the copy texts directing the reader to a footnote that reads: “This alludes to a design of inclosing a large common field at Stratford.”

28 An echo of Hamlet, 1.2.195–96—“He was a man. Take him for all in all. / I shall not look upon his like again”—as well as the inscription on the Jubilee medals.