Those hands, which you so clapped, go now, and wring
You Britain’s brave; for done are Shakespeare’s days.
His days are done, that made the dainty plays,
Which made the Globe of heav'n and earth to ring.
Dried is that vein, dried is the Thespian Spring,
Turned all to tears, and Phoebus clouds his rays.
That corpse, that coffin, now bestick those bays,
Which crowned him poet first, then poets’ king.
If tragedies might any prologue have,
All those he made, would scarce make a one to this;
Where fame, now that he gone is to the grave
(Deaths public tiring-house), the nuncius is.
For though his line of life went soon about,
The life yet of his lines shall never out.