More yet and more, and yet we mark not all: The Warning fain to bid fair women heed Its hard brief note of deadly doom and deed;[1] The verse that strewed too thick with flowers the hall Whence Nero watched his fiery festival;[2] That iron page wherein men's eyes who read See, bruised and marred between two babes that bleed, A mad red-handed husband's martyr fall;[3] The scene which crossed and streaked with mirth the strife Of Henry with his sons and witchlike wife;[4] And that sweet pageant of the kindly fiend, Who, seeing three friends in spirit and heart made one, Crowned with good hap the true-love wiles he screened In the pleached lanes of pleasant Edmonton.[5]
Greene, garlanded with February's few flowers, Ere March came in with Marlowe's rapturous rage: Peele, from whose hand the sweet white locks of age Took the mild chaplet woven of honoured hours: Nash, laughing hard: Lodge, flushed from lyric bowers: And Lilly, a goldfinch in a twisted cage Fed by some gay great lady's pettish page Till short sweet songs gush clear like short spring showers: Kid, whose grim sport still gambolled over graves: And Chettle, in whose fresh funereal verse Weeps Marian yet on Robin's wildwood hearse: Cooke, whose light boat of song one soft breath saves, Sighed from a maiden's amorous mouth averse: Live likewise ye: Time takes not you for slaves.
Haughton, whose mirth gave woman all her will: Field, bright and loud with laughing flower and bird And keen alternate notes of laud and gird: Barnes, darkening once with Borgia's deeds the quill Which tuned the passion of Parthenophil: Blithe burly Porter, broad and bold of word: Wilkins, a voice with strenuous pity stirred: Turk Mason: Brewer, whose tongue drops honey still: Rough Rowley, handling song with Esau's hand: Light Nabbes: lean Sharpham, rank and raw by turns, But fragrant with a forethought once of Burns: Soft Davenport, sad-robed, but blithe and bland: Brome, gipsy-led across the woodland ferns: Praise be with all, and place among our band.
Our mother, which wast twice, as history saith, Found first among the nations: once, when she Who bore thine ensign saw the God in thee Smite Spain, and bring forth Shakespeare: once, when death Shrank, and Rome's bloodhounds cowered, at Milton's breath: More than thy place, then first among the free More than that sovereign lordship of the sea Bequeathed to Cromwell from Elizabeth, More than thy fiery guiding-star, which Drake Hailed, and the deep saw lit again for Blake, More than all deeds wrought of thy strong right hand, This praise keeps most thy fame's memorial strong That thou wast head of all these streams of song, And time bows down to thee as Shakespeare's land.