Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh <br />To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie <br />A little nearer Spenser, to make room <br />For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb. <br />To lodge all four in one bed, make a shift <br />Until Doomsday, for hardly will a fift <br />Betwixt this day and that by Fate be slain, <br />For whom your curtains may be drawn again. <br />If your precedency in death doth bar <br />A fourth place in your sacred sepulchre, <br />Under this carved marble of thine own, <br />Sleep, rare tragedian, Shakespeare, sleep alone; <br />Thy unmolested peace, unshared cave <br />Possess as lord, not tenant of thy grave, <br />That unto us and others it may be <br />Honour hereafter to be laid by thee.<br /><br />William Basse<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/elegy-on-mr-william-shakespeare/
