Page:Shakespeare of Stratford (1926) Yale.djvu/108

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Shakespeare of Stratford
A little further, to make thee a room.[1]Thou art a monument without a tomb,And art alive still, while thy book doth liveAnd we have wits to read and praise to give.That I not mix thee so[2] my brain excuses—I mean with great but disproportion’d muses—For if I thought my judgment were of years,[3]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 honor thee I would not seekFor names, but call forth thund’ring Æschylus,Euripides, and Sophocles to us,Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova,[4] deadTo life again, to hear thy buskin treadAnd shake a stage: or, when thy socks[5] were on,Leave thee alone for the comparisonOf all that insolent Greece or haughty RomeSent 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 primeWhen, like Apollo, he came forth to warmOur 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 fitAs, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
  1. ↑ Beaumont had been buried, a few months before Shakespeare’ death, in Westminster Abbey, where Chaucer and Spenser also lay.
  2. ↑ I.e. with Chaucer, Spenser, and Beaumont.
  3. ↑ I.e. mature.
  4. ↑ Seneca, born at Cordova.
  5. ↑ Comedies.
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