Shakespeare and Precious Stones
Places," New York, 1877, edited by Henry W. Longfellow, this poem is assigned to Shakespeare on the strength of a persistent popular error.14 In his " Life" Dibdin says: " My songs have been the solace of sailors in their long voyages, in storms, in battle; and they have been quoted in mutinies to the restoration of order and discipline." It has been asserted that they brought more men into the navy than all the press gangs could do. The poem has sometimes been attributed to Edmund Falconer (1814-1879), an actor and dramatist, born in Dublin, and whose real name was Edmund O'Rourke. However, his poem entitled " Anne Hathaway, A Traditionary Ballad sung to a Day Dreamer by the Mummers of Shottery Brook,"15 falls far below the lines we have quoted in poetic quality, as may be seen from the opening stanza (the best), which runs as follows:
No beard on thy chin, but a fire in thine eye, With lustiest Manhood's in passion to vie, A stripling in form, with a tongue that can make The oldest folks listen, maids sweethearts forsake, Hie over the fields at the first blush of May, And give thy boy's heart unto Anne Hathaway.
14 Sir Sidney Lee, "A Life of Shakespeare," new edition, London, 1915, p. 26, note.
15 Edmund Falconer, " Memories, the Bequest of my Boyhood," London, 1863, pp. 14-22.
43
