Hugh Holland, 1623 (D. 1633)
“Upon the Lines and Life of the famous Scenick Poet, Master William Shakespeare.”
Those hands, which you so clapt, go now, and wring
You Britain’s brave; for done are Shakespeare’s days:
His days are done, that made the dainty Plays,
Which make the Globe of heav’n and earth to ring.
Dried is that vein, dried is the Thespian Spring,
Turn’d all to tears, and Phœbus clouds his rays:
That corpse, that coffin now bestick those bayes,
Which crown’d him Poet first, then Poet’s King.
If Tragedies might any Prologue have,
All those he made, would scarce make one to this:
Where Fame, now that he gone is to the grave
(Death’s public tiring-house), the Nuncius is.
For though his line of life went soon about,
The life yet of his lines shall never out.
Prefixed to the First Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s Works.