When I consider how my light is spent

Sonnet XVI

When I consider how my light is spent,

    Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

    And that one talent which is death to hide,

    Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present
    My true account, lest he returning chide

    'Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?'

    I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, 'God doth not need

    Either man's work or his own gifts; who best

    Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state

Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

    And post o'er land and ocean without rest:

    They also serve who only stand and wait.'

- John Milton

On Shakespeare, 1630

What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones
The labour of an age in piled 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 sepulchred in such pomp dost lie,

That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

- John Milton