Grasps in the comer: Welcome ever smiles,
And Farewell goes out sighing. O! let not Virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; for beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating Time.
ODE TO THE MEMORY OF SHAKSPEARE.
10 draw no envy, Shakspeare, 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 would 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 seem'd to raise.
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
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 Shakspeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further off, to make thee 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 disproportion'd Muses:
ODE TO THE MEMORY OF SHAKSPEARE.
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.
And though thou had 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 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 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 Shakspeare, 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,
ODE TO THE MEMORY OF SHAKSPEARE.
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 Shakspeare'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 brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance.
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
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
And despairs day, but for thy volume's light!
THERE grew an aged tree on the green,
A goodly Oak sometime had it been,
With arms full strong and largely display'd,
But of their leaves they were disaray'd:
The body big and mightily pight,
Throughly rooted, and of wondrous height;
Whilom had been the king of the field,
And mochel mast to the husband did yield,
And with his nuts larded many swine,
But now the gray moss marred his rine,
His bared boughs were beaten with storms,
His top was bald, and wasted with worms,
His honour decay'd, his branches sere.
Hard by his side grew a bragging Briere,
Which proudly thrust into th' element,
And seemed to threat the firmament:
It was embellisht with blossoms fair,
And thereto aye wonted to repair
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