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
Who wrote his Lines with a sun-beam,
More durable than Time or Fate;
Others boldly do blaspheme,
Like those that seem to preach, but prate.
4
Thou wert truly priest elect,
Chosen darling to the Nine;
Such a trophy to erect
By thy wit and skill divine.
5
That were all their other glories
(Thine excepted) torn away,
By thy admirable stories,
Their garments ever shall be gay.
6
Where thy honoured bones do lie
(As Statius once to Maro’s urn),
Thither every year will I
Slowly tread, and sadly mourn.
Epigrams Theological, Philosophical, and Romantick. Six Books, etc., with other Select Poems. 1651. Book vi. Epig. 17, pp. 150, 152, 154.