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 disproportion'd 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 Lily outshine,
Or sporting Kid, or Marlow's mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee, I will not seek
For names; but call forth thund'ring Eschylus,
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 joy'd 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 Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
A little nearer Spenser, to make room
For Shakespeare in your threefold fourfold tomb.
It does not appear that they were printed before 1633, when they were given among Donnes's Poems, printed in quarto in that year. They are also to be found in the edition of Francis Beaumont's Poems given by Blaicklock in 1653, 8vo.
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 Muse's 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 SHAKESPEARE'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
Advanc'd, 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 mourn'd like
And despairs day, but for thy volumes light.
1 Ben Jonson also wrote the following lines, which are prefixed before the portrait of Shakespeare, by Droeshant, in the folio ditions:
This Figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the Graver had a strife
With Nature, to out-doo the life:
O, could he but have drawne his wit
As well in brasse, as he hath hit
His face; the Print would then surpasse
All, that was ever writ in brasse.
But since he cannot, Reader looke
Not on his Picture, but his Booke.
TO THE MEMORIE OF THE DECEASED AUTHOUR
HAKE-SPEARE, at length thy pious fellows giue
The world thy Workes: thy Workes, by which
outliue
Thy Tombe, thy name must, when that stone is rent
And Time dissolues thy Stratford Moniment,
Here we aliue shall view thee still. This Booke
When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke
Fresh to all Ages: when Posteritie
Shall loath what's new, thinke all is prodegie
That is not Shake-speares; eu'ry Line, each Verse
Here shall reuiue, redeeme thee from thy Herse.
Nor Fire, nor cank'ring Age, as Naso said,
Of his, thy wit-fraught Booke shall once inuade
Nor shall I e're beleeue, or thinke thee dead
(Though mist) until our bankrout Stage be sped
(Impossible) with some new straine t'out-do
Passions of Juliet and her Romeo;
Or till I heare a Scene more nobly take
Then when thy half-Sword parlying Romans spake.
Till these, till any of thy Volumes rest
Shall with more fire, more feeling be exprest,
Be sure our Shake-speare, thou canst neuer dye,
But crown'd with Laurell, liue eternally.
TO THE MEMORIE OF
M. W. SHAKE-SPEARE.
E wondred (Shake-speare) that thou went'st so
From the World's-Stage, to the Graues-Tyring
Wee thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth,
Tels thy Spectators, that thou went'st but forth
To enter with applause. An Actors Art
Can dye, and liue to acte a second part.
That's but an Exit of Mortalitie;
This, a Re-entrance to a Plaudite.
VPON THE LINES AND LIFE OF THE FAMOUS
SCENICKE POET
MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
HOSE hands, which you so clapt, go now, and wring
You Britaines braue; for done are Shake-
speares dayes:
His dayes are done, that made the dainty Playes,
Which made the Globe of heau'n and earth to ring
Dry'de is that veine, dry'd is the Thespian Spring,
Turn'd all to teares, and Phoebus clouds his rayes:
That corps, that coffin now besticke those bayes,
Which crown'd him Poet first, then Poets King.
If Tragedies might any Prologue haue,
All those he made, would scarse make one to this
Where Fame, now that he gone is to the graue
(Deaths publique tyring-house) the Nuncius is.
For though his line of life went soone about
The life yet of his lines shall neuer out.
HVGH HOLLAND.
2 These lines are probably by John Marston.
FROM THE SECOND FOLIO EDITION OF 1632.
ON WORTHY MASTER SHAKESPEARE AND HIS POEMS.
MIND reflecting ages past, whose clear
And equal surface can make things appear
Distant a thousand years, and represent
Them in their lively colours' just extent.
To out-run hasty time, retrieve the fates,
Roll back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates
Of death and Lethe, where confused lie
Great heaps of ruinous mortality.
In that deep dusky dungeon to discern
A royal ghost from churl's; by art to learn
The physiognomy of shades, and give
Them sudden birth, wond'ring how oft they live,
What story coldly tells, what poets feign,
At second hand, and picture without brain,
Senseless and soulless shows: To give a stage
(Ample and true with life) voice, action, age,
As Plato's year and new scene of the world
Them unto us, or us to them had hurl'd.
To raise our antient sovereigns from their herse,
Make kings his subjects, by exchanging verse,
Enlive their pale trunks, that the present age
Joys in their joy, and trembles at their rage:
Yet so to temper passion, that our ears
Take pleasure in their pain; and eyes in tears
Both weep and smile; fearful at plots so sad,
Then laughing at our fear; abus'd and glad
To be abus'd; affected with that truth
Which we perceive is false; pleas'd in that ruth
At which we start; and by elaborate play
Tortur'd and tickled; by a crab-like way
Time past made pastime, and in ugly sort
Disgorging up his ravine for our sport:
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