To The Memory Of My Beloved
Master William Shakspeare,
And What He Hath Left Us

• To draw no envy, SHAKSPEARE, on thy name,
• Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
• While I confess thy writings to be such,
• As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much.
• 'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
• Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
• For seeliest ignorance on these may light,
• Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
• Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
• The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
• Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
• And think to ruin where it seemed to raise.
• These are, as some infamous bawd or whore
• Should praise a matron; what could hurt her more?
• But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
• Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.
• I therefore will begin: Soul of the age!
• The applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!
• My SHAKSPEARE rise! I will not lodge thee by
• Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
• A little further, to make thee a room :
• Thou art a monument without a tomb,
• And art alive still while thy book doth live
• And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
• That I not mix thee so my brain excuses,
• I mean with great, but disproportioned Muses :
• For if I thought my judgment were of years,
• I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
• And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
• Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.
• And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
• From thence to honour thee, I would not seek
• For names : but call forth thund'ring Aeschylus,
• Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
• Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
• To life again, to hear thy buskin tread
• And shake a stage : or when thy socks were on,
• Leave thee alone for the comparison
• Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
• Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
• Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show
• To whom all Scenes of Europe homage owe.
• He was not of an age, but for all time!
• And all the Muses still were in their prime,
• When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
• Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!
• Nature herself was proud of his designs,
• And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines!
• Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
• As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
• The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
• Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
• But antiquated and deserted lie,
• As they were not of Nature's family.
• Yet must I not give Nature all; thy art,
• My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part.
• For though the poet's matter nature be,
• His art doth give the fashion : and, that he
• Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,
• (Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
• Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same,
• And himself with it, that he thinks to frame;
• Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn;
• For a good poet's made, as well as born.
• And such wert thou! Look how the father's face
• Lives in his issue, even so the race
• Of Shakspeare's mind and manners brightly shines
• In his well torned and true filed lines;
• In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
• As brandisht at the eyes of ignorance.
• Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
• To see thee in our waters yet appear,
• And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
• That so did take Eliza, and our James!
• But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
• Advanced, and made a constellation there!
• Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage
• Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage,
• Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night,
• And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.