| |
| TO draw no envy, Shakespeare, 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. * * * * * | |
| Soul of the age! | 5 |
| The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! | |
| My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by | |
| Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie | |
| A little further off, to make thee room: | |
| Thou art a monument without a tomb. | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| 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 had small Latin and less Greek, | |
| From thence to honor thee I will not seek | 20 |
| For names; but call forth thundering Eschylus, | |
| Euripides, and Sophocles to us, | |
| Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead, | |
| To live again, to hear thy buskin tread, | |
| And shake a stage: or when thy socks were on, | 25 |
| 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. | 30 |
| 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, | 35 |
| 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: | 40 |
| But antiquated and deserted lie, | |
| As they were not of nature’s family. | |
| Yet must I not give nature all; thy art, | |
| My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part. | |
| For though the poet’s matter nature be, | 45 |
| 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; | 50 |
| Or for the laurel 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 Shakespeare’s mind and manners brightly shines | 55 |
| In his well turned and true filed lines: | |
| In each of which he seems to shake a lance, | |
| As brandished at the eyes of ignorance. | |
| Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were | |
| To see thee in our water yet appear, | 60 |
| 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, | 65 |
| 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! | |
| |
