I dare not do thy memory that wrong, Unto our larger griefs to give a tongue; I’ll only sigh in earnest, and let fall My solemn tears at thy great funeral; For every eye that rains a show’r for thee, Laments thy loss in a sad elegy. Nor is it fit each humble Muse should have Thy worth his subject, now th’ art laid in grave; No, it’s a flight beyond the pitch of those, Whose worthless pamphlets are not sense in prose. Let learned Jonson sing a Dirge for thee, And fill our Orb with mournful harmony: But we need no remembrancer; thy fame Shall still accompany thy honoured name To all posterity; and make us be Sensible of what we lost in losing thee: Being the age’s wonder, whose smooth rhymes Did more reform than lash the looser times. Nature herself did her own self admire, As oft as thou wert pleased to attire Her in her native lustre, and confess Thy dressing was her chiefest comliness. How can we then forget thee, when the age Her chiefest tutor, and the widowed stage Her only favourite in thee hath lost, And Nature’s self what she did brag of most? Sleep then, rich soul of numbers, whilst poor we Enjoy the profits of thy legacy; And thinke it happiness enough we have So much of thee redeemèd from the grave, As may suffice to enlighten future times With the bright lustre of thy matchless rhymes. Appended to Shakespeare’s _Poems_. 1640. Sig. L. THOMAS BANCROFT, 1639 (_fl._ 1633-1658) “_To Shakespeare._” Thy Muse’s sugared dainties seem to us Like the fam’d apples of old Tantalus: For we, admiring, see and hear thy strains; But none I see or hear, those sweets attains. “_To the same._” Thou hast so us’d thy pen (or shook thy spear), That Poets startle, nor thy wit come near. _Two Bookes of Epigrammes, and Epitaphs._ 1639. Nos. 118 and 119. GEORGE DANIEL, 1647 (1616-1657) The sweetest Swan of Avon, to ye fair And cruel Delia, passionately sings; Other men’s weaknesses and follies are Honour and wit to him; each accent brings A sprig to crown him Poet; and contrive A monument, in his own work, to live. _Poems. Vindication of Poesie._ Add. MS. 19255, p. 17. (British Museum.) Privately printed by Dr. Grosart. 1878, 4 vols. Vol. i. pp. 28, 29. SAMUEL SHEPPARD, 1651 (_fl. c._ 1606-1652) “_In Memory of our Famous Shakespeare._” 1 Sacred spirit, whiles thy Lyre Echoed o’er the Arcadian Plains, Even Apollo did admire, Orpheus wondered at thy strains. 2 Plautus sigh’d, Sophocles wept Tears of anger, for to hear, After they so long had slept, So bright a genius should appear. 3