Above the ill fortune of them, or the need. My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie 20 And we have wits to read and praise to give. That I not mix thee so my brain excusesI mean with great, but disproportioned Muses; 26 For if I thought my judgment were of To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy For names, but call forth thundering name, Am I thus ample to thy book and fame; 'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. 51 65 And did act, what now we moan, Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines In his well turnèd and true filèd3 lines, Old men so duly, ΙΟ As, sooth, the Parcae thought him one, He played so truly. In each of which he seems to shake a lance, So, by error, to his fate As brandished at the eyes of ignorance. 70 75 That so did take1 Eliza and our James! But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere Advanced, and made a constellation there! Shine forth, thou Star of poets, and with They all consented, But viewing him since, alas, too late! And have sought, to give new birth, JOHN DONNE (1573-1631) 15 20 GO AND CATCH A FALLING STAR Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the Devil's foot; Yesternight the sun went hence, And yet is here today; He hath no desire nor sense, Then fear not me, More wings and spurs than he. O how feeble is man's power, But come bad chance, And we join to it our strength, And we teach it art and length, Itself o'er us to advance. 5 IO 15 20 26 When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind, It cannot be From THE LIFE OF JULIUS CÆSAR The Romans inclining to Cæsar's prosperity, and taking the bit in the mouth, supposing that to be ruled by one man alone, it would be a good mean for them to take breath a little, after so many troubles and miseries as they had abidden in these civil wars, they chose him perpetual Dictator. This was a plain tyranny: for to this absolute power of Dictator they added this, never to be [10 afraid to be deposed. Cicero propounded before the Senate that they should give |