Upon the Lines, and Life, of the famous Scenick Poet, Mafter WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
Those bands, which you fo clapt, go now and wring, You Britains brave; for done are Shakespeare's days; His days are done, that made the dainty plays,
Which made the globe of heaven and earth to ring:
Dry'd is that vein, dry'd is the Thespian Spring,
Turn'd all to tears, and Phabus clouds his rays;
That corpfe, that coffin, now bestick those bays,
Which crown'd him poet first, then poets' king.
If tragedies might any prologue have,
All thofe be made would fcarce make one to this;
Where fame, now that he gone is to the grave,
(Death's publick tyring-house) the Nuntius is:
For, though his line of life went foon about,
The life yet of his lines fhall never out.
the deceafed Author, Mafter W. SHAKESPEARE.
Shakespeare, at length thy pious fellows give
The world thy works; thy works, by which outlive
Thy tomb, thy name muft: when that ftone is rent,
And time diffolves thy Stratford monument,
Here we alive fhall view thee ftill; this book,
When brass and marble fade, shall make thee look
Fresh to all ages; when pofterity
Shall loath what's new, think all is prodigy
That is not Shakespeare's, every line, each verfe,
Here fball revive, redeem thee from thy berje,
Nor fire, nor cank'ring age-as Nafo faid
Of bis,-thy wit fraught book fhall once invade:
Nor fhall I e'er believe or think thee dead,
Though mift, until our bankrout ftage be fped
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(Impoffible) with feme new ftrain to out-do
Paffions of Juliet, and her Romeo ;
Or till I hear a scene more nobly take,
Than when thy half-fword parlying Romans fpake:
Till thefe, till any of thy volume's rest,
Shall with more fire more feeling be express'd,
Be fure, our Shakespeare, thou canst never die,
But, crown'd with laurel, live eternally.
To the Memory of Mafter W. SHAKESPEARE.
We wonder'd, Shakespeare, that thou went ft fo foon From the world's ftage to the grave's tyring-room : We thought thee dead; but this thy printed worth Tel's thy fpellators, that thou went'ft but forth To enter with applause: an actor's art Can die, and live to at a fecond part; That's but an exit of mortality,
This a re-entrance to a plaudite.
On worthy Mafter SHAKESPEARE,
and his Poems.
A mind reflecting ages paft, whofe clear
And equal furface can make things appear,
Distant a thousand years, and reprefent
Them in their lively colours, juft extent:
To cutrun bafty time, retrieve the fates,
Rowl back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates
Of death and Lethe, where confused lie
Great heaps of ruinous mortality:
In that deep dufky dungeon, to difcern
A royal ghost from churls; by art to learn
The phyfiognomy of fhades, and give
Them fudden birth, wond'ring how oft they live;
What story coldly tells, what poets feign
At fecond band, and picture without brain,
Senielefs and foul-lefs fhews: to give a stage,–
Ample, and true with life,-voice, allion, age,
As Plato's year, and new scene of the world,
Them unto us, or us to them had burl'd:
To raise our ancient fovereigns from their herse,
Make kings his fubje&ts; by exchanging verse
Enlive their pale trunks, that the prefent age
Joys in their joy, and trembles at their rage:
Yet fo to temper paffion, that our ears
Take pleasure in their pain, and eyes in tears
Both fmile and weep; fearful at plots fo fad,
Then laughing at our fear; abus'd, and glad
To be abus'd; affected with that truth
Which we perceive is falfe, pleas'd in that ruth
At which we start, and, by elaborate play,
Tortur'd and tickl'd; by a crab-like way
Time paft made paftime, and in ugly fort
Difgorging up his ravin for our Sport :-
-While the plebeian imp, from lofty throne,
Creates and rules a world, and works upon
Mankind by fecret engines; now to move
A chilling pity, then a rigorous love;
To ftrike up and ftroak down, both joy and ire;
To fteer the affections; and by heavenly fire
Mold us anew, ftoln from ourselves :-
This,—and much more, which cannot be express'd But by himself, his tongue, and his own breast,Was Shakespeare's freehold; which his cunning brain Improv'd by favour of the nine-fold train ;The bufkin'd mufe, the comick queen, the grand And louder tone of Clio, nimble band And nimbler foot of the melodious pair, The filver-voiced lady, the most fair Calliope, whofe fpeaking filence daunts, And the whofe praise the heavenly body chants.
Thefe jointly woo'd him, envying one another ;-
Obey'd by all as fpcufe, but lov'd as brother ;-
And wrought a curious robe, of fable grave,
Fresh green, and pleasant yellow, red most brave,
And conftant blue, rich purple, guiltless white,
The lowly rullet, and the fcarlet bright :
Branch'd and embroider'd like the painted spring;
Each leaf match'd with a flower, and each firing
Of golden wire, each line of filk: there run
Italian works, whofe thread the fifters fpun;
And there did fing, or seem to fing, the choice
Birds of a foreign note and various voice:
Here hangs a mofy rock; there plays a fair
But chiding fountain, purled: not the air,
Nor clouds, nor thunder, but were living drawn;
Not cut of common tiffany or lawn,
But fine materials, which the mufes know,
And only know the countries where they grow.
Now, when they could no longer him enjoy,
In mortal garments pent,-death may destroy,
They fay, his body; but his verse shall live,
And more than nature takes our hands fhall give:
In a lefs volume, but more strongly bound,
Shakespeare shall breathe and speak; with laurel crown'á,
Which never fades; fed with ambrofial meat;
In a well-lined vefture, rich, and neat:
So with this robe they cloath him, bid him wear it;
For time fhall never stain, nor envy tear it.
The friendly Admirer of his Endowments,
admirable dramatick Poet, W. SHAKESPEARE.
What needs, my Shakespeare, for his honour'd bones, The labour of an age in piled ftones;
Or that bis ballow'd reliques fhould be bid
Under a far-ypointing pyramid?
Dear fon of memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou fuch weak witness of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and aftonishmeni,
Haft built thyself a live-long monument :
For whilft, to the fhame of flow-endeavouring art,
Thy eafy numbers flow; and that each heart-
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalu'd book,
Thofe Delphick lines with deep impreffion took;
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Doft make us marble with too much conceiving;
And, fo fepulcher'd, in fuch pomp doft lie,
That kings, for fuch a tomb, would wish to die.
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