" The memory of those
brilliant days stayed with the poet-child. They were sun-gilt,
as childish memories are, and in after years he wrote:
"That very time I saw (but thou couldst not)
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd. A certain aim he took
At a fair vestal, throned by the West,
And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower;
Before, milk-white; now, purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness."*
*Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II Scene i.
Some time after John Shakespeare became chief bailiff his
fortunes turned. From being rich he became poor. Bit by bit he
was obliged to sell his own and his wife's property.
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