Above the ill-fortune of them, or the need.
I, therefore, will begin. Soul of the age!
The applause! delight! and wonder of our
stage!

My Shakspere, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie 20
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, 25
I mean with great, but disproportioned
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 out

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 joyed 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 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

60

Upon the Muse's anvil; turn the same,
And himself with it, that he thinks to frame;

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all years past are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot;
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find,
What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible go see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights,

Till age snow white hairs on thee; Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me All strange wonders that befell thee, And swear, Nowhere

Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not: I would not go,

Though at next door we might meet; Though she were true when you met her, And last till you write your letter,

80

5

10

155

20

Care less eyes, lips, and hands to miss. 20

Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth if the other do.
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

Like the other foot, obliquely run.
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

LOVE'S DEITY

1633

25

25

30

35

15

But every modern god will now extend
His vast prerogative as far as Jove;
To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
All is the purlieu of the god of Love.
Oh were we wakened by this tyranny
To ungod this child again, it could not be 20
I should love her, who loves not me.

Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I

As though I felt the worst that love could do?

Love may make me leave loving, or might try

A deeper plague, to make her love me too,

25

Which, since she loves before, I'm loath to see;

Falsehood is worse than hate; and that must be,

If she whom I love, should love me.

1633

Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Nor vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise:
Nor rules of state, but rules of good;

Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressers great;
Who God doth late and early pray
More of his grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend.

This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And, having nothing, yet hath all.

1614?

ON HIS MISTRESS, THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA

You meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light,

You common people of the skies; What are you, when the moon shall rise? You curious chanters of the wood

That warble forth Dame Nature's lays, Thinking your passions understood

10

15

20

ON THE LIFE OF MAN

LIKE to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are,
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew,
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood;
Even such is man, whose borrowed light
Is straight called in and paid to-night.
The wind blows out, the bubble dies,
The spring entombed in autumn lies,
The dew's dried up, the star is shot,
The flight is past, and man forgot.

WHAT IS LOVE?

TELL me, dearest, what is love? 'Tis a lightning from above; a fire,

'Tis an arrow, 't is

'Tis a boy they call Desire.

'Tis a grave,

Gapes to have

5

5

Those poor fools that long to prove.

1640