| |
| 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 | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| Or crafty Malice might pretend this praise, | |
| And think to ruin where it seem’d 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, | 15 |
| 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 Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by | |
| Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie | 20 |
| 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; | 25 |
| 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 Lyly outshine, | |
| Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe’s mighty line. | 30 |
| 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, | |
| Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| 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 | 45 |
| 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. | 50 |
| 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, | 55 |
| 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 | 60 |
| 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 | 65 |
| Lives in his issue; even so, the race | |
| Of Shakespeare’s mind and manners brightly shines | |
| In his well-turnèd and true-filèd lines; | |
| In each of which he seems to shake a lance | |
| As brandish’d at the eyes of Ignorance. | 70 |
| Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were | |
| To see thee in our water 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 | 75 |
| 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 night, | |
| And despairs day, but for thy volume’s light. | 80 |
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