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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.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For
silliest 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
urges 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 th' ill
fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin:
Soul of the Age!
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, 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 judgement 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 thundering
Aeschylus,
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,
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 Shakespeare, 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 Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly
shines
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 waters
yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of
Thames,
That did so 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.
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