On Shakespeare by : John Milton

What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones ,
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid
Under a star –y pointing pyramid ?

Dear son of memory ,great heir of fame,
What need’st than such witness of thy name ?
Than in our wonder and astonishment
Has built thyself a live-long monument .
For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavoring art,
Thy easy numbers flow , and that each hurt
Hath from the leaves from 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 sepulchered in such pomp dost lie ,
That kings for a tomb would wish to die .