To The Memory Of My Beloved, The Author, Mr William Shakespeare, And What He Hath Left Us

1To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name

2Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;

3While I confess thy writings to be such

4As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much.

5'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways

6Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;

7For silliest ignorance on these may light,

8Which when it sounds at best but echoes right;

9Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance

10The truth, but gropes, and urges all by chance;

11Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,

12And think to ruin where it seemed to raise.

13These are as some infamous bawd or whore

14Should praise a matron. What could hurt her more?

15But thou art proof against them, and indeed

16Above th' ill fortune of them, or the need.

17I therefore will begin: Soul of the Age!

18The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!

19My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by

20Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

21A little further, to make thee a room:

22Thou art a monument without a tomb,

23And art alive still, while thy book doth live,

24And we have wits to read, and praise to give.

25That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,

26I mean with great but disproportioned Muses,

27For if I thought my judgement were of years,

28I should commit thee surely with thy peers,

29And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,

30Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.

31And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,

32From thence to honour thee I would not seek

33For names; but call forth thundering Aeschylus,

34Euripides, and Sophocles to us,

35Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,

36To live again, to hear thy buskin tread,

37And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on,

38Leave thee alone for the comparison

39Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome

40Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.

41Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show

42To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.

43He was not of an age, but for all time!

44And all the Muses still were in their prime

45When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm

46Our ears, or, like a Mercury, to charm!

47Nature herself was proud of his designs,

48And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines!

49Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,

50As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.

51The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,

52Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;

53But antiquated and deserted lie,

54As they were not of Nature's family.

55Yet must I not give Nature all; thy art,

56My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.

57For though the poet's matter nature be,

58His art doth give the fashion; and that he

59Who casts to write a living line must sweat

60(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat

61Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same,

62And himself with it, that he thinks to frame,

63Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn;

64For a good poet's made as well as born.

65And such wert thou. Look how the father's face

66Lives in his issue, even so the race

67Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines

68In his well turned and true-filed lines:

69In each of which he seems to shake a lance,

70As brandished at the eyes of ignorance.

71Sweet swan of Avon! what a sight it were

72To see thee in our waters yet appear,

73And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,

74That did so take Eliza and our James!

75But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere

76Advanced, and made a constellation there:

77Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage,

78Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage,

79Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night,

80And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.