RINGING THE CHANGES

Bright baffling Soul, least capturable of themes,
     Thou, who display’dst a life of common-place,
     Leaving no intimate word or personal trace
     Of high design outside the artistry
        Of thy penned dreams,
Still shalt remain at heart unread eternally.

Thomas Hardy, ‘To Shakespeare After 300 Years’

What a wide, free, careless spirit was this man Shakespeare’s — incarnate lesson to narrow-headed mortals, their strait moralities, and pedantic hearts! And what a Song he sang; clothing beauty for all time in actuality, in strangeness, and variety!

John Galsworthy, ‘The Great Tree’

Holy Trinity by William Wells Quatremain

This Sunday in Stratford-upon-Avon, as part of the weekend celebrations for Shakespeare’s 450th birthday, a special service will be held in Holy Trinity, the church in which William was christened and buried. The parish register will be on display, showing the record of his baptism on 26 April 1564. 

The film that follows was begun on the Bard’s official birthday, 23 April, and takes us from Chapel Street, Bradford to the Tate Modern on Bankside via the bells of Holy Trinity and Southwark Cathedral.

‘The Immortal Memory’
Photo by EP