BARDOLATRY III

   Shakespeare lives on today in Prospero,
   His crafty, artful, supernatural mage
   Who conjures tempests on the wooden O
   Of our Bard’s global microcosmic stage.

   That we might think those players in their passion
   (Reciting their poetic dialogue,
   Strangely composed in antiquated fashion)
   Would raise in us no more than a mental fog

   Is contradicted by experience:
   Like Prospero’s, the visions of the Bard
   Beguile and captivate our every sense,
   While softening each heart, however hard.

        Devised by cosmological design,
        His plays disclose their maker as divine.

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