What needs my Shakespeare for his honour’d bones, The labour of an age in pilèd stones? Or that his hallow’d relics should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid? Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame, What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou, in our wonder and astonishment, Hast built thyself a life-long monument. For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art, Thy easy numbers flow; and that each heart 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 sepulchr’d, in such pomp dost lie, That kings, for such a tomb should wish to die. Prefixed to Second Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_. 1632. I. M. S., 1632 “_On worthy Master Shakespeare and his Poems._” A mind reflecting ages past, whose clear And equal surface can make things appear Distant a thousand years, and represent Them in their lively colours’ just extent. To outrun hasty time, retrieve the fates, Roll back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates Of death and Lethe, where (confused) lie Great heaps of ruinous mortality. In that deep dusky dungeon to discern A royal ghost from churls: by art to learn The physiognomy of shades, and give Them sudden birth, wond’ring how oft they live. What story coldly tells, what poets feign At second hand, and picture without brain Senseless and soulless shows. To give a stage (Ample and true with life) voice, action, age, As Plato’s year and new scene of the world Them unto us, or us to them had hurl’d. To raise our ancient sovereigns from their herse, Make kings his subjects, by exchanging verse Enlive their pale trunks, that the present age Joys in their joy, and trembles at their rage: Yet so to temper passion, that our ears Take pleasure in their pain; and eyes in tears Both weep and smile; fearful at plots so sad, Then, laughing at our fear; abus’d, and glad To be abus’d, affected with that truth Which we perceive is false; pleas’d in that ruth At which we start; and by elaborate play Tortur’d and tickled; by a crablike way Time past made pastime, and in ugly sort Disgorging up his ravaine for our sport— —While the Plebeian Imp, from lofty throne, Creates and rules a world, and works upon Mankind by secret engines; now to move A chilling pity, then a rigorous love: To strike up and stroke down, both joy and ire; To steer th’ affections; and by heavenly fire Mould us anew. Stol’n from ourselves— This, and much more which cannot be express’d, But by himself, his tongue and his own breast, Was Shakespeare’s freehold, which his cunning brain Improv’d by favour of the ninefold train.