What needs my Shakespear for his honour'd Bones,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his hallow'd reliques should be
Under a Star-ypointing Pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame,
What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd Book,
Those Delphick lines with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving;
And so Sepulcher'd in such pomp dost lie,
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.'This copy of verses on Shakespear being made in 1630, our poet was then in the 22nd year of his age: and it was printed with the poems of that author at London in 1640. (line 5...
Dear son of memory,):
He honors his favourite Shakespear with the same relation as the Muses themselves.
For the Muses are called by the old poets "the daughters of memory."'~ Th.
Newton,
Milton's Works, 2nd edition, 1753."On Shakespear" was Milton's first published poem, appearing anonymously in the second folio of plays by Shakespeare (1632).
There it bears the title, "An Epitaph on the admirable Dramaticke Poet,
W.
RE" but has no attribution.
