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That is not Shake-speare’s every line, each verse
Here shall revive, redeem thee from thy hearse.
Nor fire nor cankering age, as Naso said
Of his, thy wit-fraught book shall once invade.
Nor shall I e’er believe or think thee dead
(Though miss’d), until our bankrout^[1] stage be sped
(Impossible!) with some new strain t’ outdo
Passions of Juliet and her Romeo;
Or till I hear a scene more nobly take
Than when thy half-sword-parleying^[2] Romans spake.
Till these, till any of thy volume’s rest,
Shall with more fire, more feeling, be express’d,
Be sure, our Shake-speare, thou canst never die,
But, crown’d with laurel, live eternally.
L. DIGGES^[3]

(F) Memorial Verses by James Mabbe.

To the memory of M. W. Shake-speare.

We wondered, Shake-speare, that thou went’st so soon
From the world’s stage to the grave’s tiring-room.
We thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth
Tells thy spectators that thou went’st but forth
To enter with applause. An actor’s art
Can die, and live to act a second part:
That’s^[4] but an exit of mortality,
This^[5] a re-entrance to a plaudite.^[6]
I. M.

(G) List of the Principal Actors in Shakespeare’s Plays.

1. Bankrupt.
2. I.e. Brutus and Cassius, parleying with swords half drawn.
3. A longer poem by Digges, in the same strain but with more detail, was printed in the 1640 edition of Shakespeare’s Poems.
4. Shakespeare’s death.
5. The appearance of the Folio.
6. The play’s successful close.