A Writers View

 

On Shakespeare by John Milton

 

 

What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,

The labor of an age in pilèd stones,

Or that his hallowed relics should be hid   

Under a star-ypointing pyramid?

Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame,

What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?

Thou in our wonder and astonishment

Hast built thyself a live-long monument.

For whilst to th’ shame of slow-endeavouring art,   

Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart   

Hath from the leaves of 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 sepúlchred in such pomp dost lie,

That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

 

 

This poem is made as a tribute to a fellow artists William Shakespeare. The first few lines are mostly about Shakespeare's tome. The poem explains that Milton does not believe the final resting place for a most beloved writer should be a pile of stones. He also recognizes Shakespeare as a great author. He has gives many complements such as "Dear son of memory" and "great heir of  fame" This is my perspective of this poem but I can not say I have a gift for understanding poetry.