ON SHAKESPEARE. 1630.
What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones
The labor of an age in piled stones?
Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid
Under a [star-ypointing] pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, 5
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself .
For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavoring art
Thy easy numbers flow, [and that each heart] 10
Hath from the leaves of [thy unvalued book]
[Those Delphic lines] with deep impression took,
Then thou, [our fancy of itself bereaving],
[Dost make us marble with too much conceiving],
And so [sepulchred] in such pomp dost lie 15
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.