...closer to 'learned' Chaucer, '
said Basse to 'Renowned' Spencer;
'and you to Spencer,
'rare' Beaumont.
'Make room in your tomb for Shakespeare,
'To lodge all four in one bed'...
...for equal fame.' (Not
for hanky-panky or thrift.)
To sell the request:
'Not between now and doomsday,
will there likely be need
to fit in a famous fift.'
A suggestion of the demise of poetry,
to be sure.
But Basse left off the 'h',
instead of 'shifth', to say 'shift'.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem