Page:Shakespeare of Stratford (1926) Yale.djvu/109

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Shakespeare of Stratford
93
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please,But antiquated and deserted lieAs 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 heatUpon 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 faceLives in his issue, even so the raceOf Shakespeare’s mind and manners brightly shinesIn 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 wereTo see thee in our waters yet appear,And make those flights upon the banks of ThamesThat so did take Eliza and our James!But stay, I see thee in the hemisphereAdvanc’d and made a constellation there.Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage,Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stageWhich since thy flight fro hence hath mourn’d like night,And despairs day but for thy volume’s light.BEN: JONSON.
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