On Shakespeare
WHAT needs my Shakespeare, for his honoured bones,The labour of an age in piled stones?Or that his hallowed reliques should be hidUnder a star-y-pointing pyramid?Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?Thou in our wonder and astonishmentHast built thyself a live-long monument.For whilst, to shame of slow-endeavouring artThy easy numbers flow, and that each heartHath from the leaves of thy unvalued bookThose Delphic lines with deep impression took,Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;And so sepulchered in such pomp dost lie,That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.