In the last line of the poem “on shakespeare,” what does milton mean when he writes that kings would "wish to die"?

John Milton praises Shakespeare’s writing style and literary works through the poem “On Shakespeare.” He feels that Shakespeare’s invaluable works have created a place in readers’ hearts, and his fame and glory increase with the rise in the number of his readers. He also states that readers' immense love of Shakespeare's work has made those readers Shakespeare’s monument (“tomb”):

Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving

And so Sepulcher'd in such pomp dost lie,

That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.

Milton suggests that even kings would wish for such a monument from their subjects and would rather reside in their hearts than be forgotten. (PLATO)

In the last line of the poem “On Shakespeare,” what does Milton mean when he writes that kings would "wish to die"?

The suggestion is that Shakespeare's readers have been overcome with awe and wonder, in order for that they are spellbound and stand still, so that they resemble marble statues. This is, of course, made up praise, so that Milton has been taking poetic license to invent a poetic vanity.

first things first: the playwright rarely, if ever, writes the stage directions found in published scripts. it is common practice for publishers to hire the stage manager of the original production to create descriptions of the action to readers better comprehend the play.

i have that page of the script in front of me (although it's page 109 in my edition) and there are no stage directions - the line you quote is the first line of a dialogue between henry and bailey. are you referring to the stage directions preceding that line?

there is only one way to "interpret" this dialogue as henry has clearly made a decision: he's going to take a new path, different from the one he has been following. bailey (a less literate character) refers to walden as "your pond place" and henry quotes him, the playwright putting "pond place" in quotation marks to show the relationship between the two lines.

when this dialogue begins the play has ended - the remaining dialogue is an epilogue designed to tell us that henry's story is not over, that his live will continue. it is, after all, the morning following the night that is the title of the play. had they intended otherwise, i'm sure lawrence and lee would have titled the play, "the night thoreau spent in jail and the morning after".