by Homer
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Noble Nature
Ben Jonson (1573–1637)
IT is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make Man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day 5
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night —
It was the plant and flower of Light
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be. 10
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
To Celia
Ben Jonson (1573–1637)
DRINK to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup
And I’ll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise 5
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee 10
As giving it a hope that there
It could not wither’d be;
But thou thereon didst only breathe
And sent’st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, 15
Not of itself but thee!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
A Farewell to the World
Ben Jonson (1573–1637)
FALSE world, good night! since thou hast brought
That hour upon my morn of age;
Henceforth I quit thee from my thought,
My part is ended on thy stage.
Yes, threaten, do. Alas! I fear 5
As little as I hope from thee:
I know thou canst not show nor bear
More hatred than thou hast to me.
My tender, first, and simple years
Thou didst abuse and then betray; 10
Since stir’d’st up jealousies and fears,
When all the causes were away.
Then in a soil hast planted me
Where breathe the basest of thy fools;
Where envious arts professèd be, 15
And pride and ignorance the schools;
Where nothing is examined, weigh’d,
But as ’tis rumour’d, so believed;
Where every freedom is betray’d,
And every goodness tax’d or grieved. 20
But what we’re born for, we must bear:
Our frail condition it is such
That what to all may happen here,
If ‘t chance to me, I must not grutch.
Else I my state should much mistake 25
To harbour a divided thought
From all my kind — that, for my sake,
There should a miracle be wrought.
No, I do know that I was born
To age, misfortune, sickness, grief: 30
But I will bear these with that scorn
As shall not need thy false relief.
Nor for my peace will I go far,
As wanderers do, that still do roam;
But make my strengths, such as they are, 35
Here in my bosom, and at home.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
A Nymph’s Passion
Ben Jonson (1573–1637)
I LOVE, and he loves me again,
Yet dare I not tell who;
For if the nymphs should know my swain,
I fear they’d love him too;
Yet if he be not known, 5
The pleasure is as good as none,
For that’s a narrow joy is but our own.
I’ll tell, that if they be not glad,
They may not envy me;
But then if I grow jealous mad 10
And of them pitied be,
It were a plague ‘bove scorn;
And yet it cannot be forborne
Unless my heart would, as my thought, be torn.
He is, if they can find him, fair 15
And fresh, and fragrant too,
As summer’s sky or purgéd air,
And looks as lilies do
That are this morning blown:
Yet, yet I doubt he is not known, 20
And fear much more that more of him be shown.
But he hath eyes so round and bright,
As make away my doubt,
Where Love may all his torches light,
Though Hate had put them out; 25
But then t’ increase my fears
What nymph soe’er his voice but hears
Will be my rival, though she have but ears.
I’ll tell no more, and yet I love,
And he loves me; yet no 30
One unbecoming thought doth move
From either heart I know:
But so exempt from blame
As it would be to each a fame,
If love or fear would let me tell his name. 35
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Epode
Ben Jonson (1573–1637)
NOT to know vice at all, and keep true state,
Is virtue, and not fate:
Next to that virtue is to know vice well,
And her black spite expel,
Which to effect (since no breast is so sure, 5
Or safe, but she’ll procure
Some way of entrance) we must plant a guard
Of thoughts to watch and ward
At th’eye and ear, the ports unto the mind,
That no strange or unkind 10
Object arrive there, but the heart, our spy,
Give knowledge instantly
To wakeful reason, our affections’ king:
Who, in th’ examining,
Will quickly taste the treason, and commit 15
Close, the close cause of it.
’Tis the securest policy we have,
To make our sense our slave.
But this true course is not embraced by many:
By many? scarce by any. 20
For either our affections do rebel,
Or else the sentinel,
That should ring larum to the heart, doth sleep:
Or some great thought doth keep
Back the intelligence, and falsely swears 25
They’re base and idle fears
Whereof the loyal conscience so complains.
Thus, by these subtle trains,
Do several passions invade the mind,
And strike our reason blind: 30
Of which usurping rank, some have thought love.
The first, as prone to move
Most frequent tumults, horrors, and unrests,
In our inflamèd breasts:
But this doth from the cloud of error grow, 35
Which thus we over-blow.
The thing they here call Love is blind Desire,
Armed with bow, shafts, and fire;
Inconstant, like the sea, of whence ‘t is born,
Rough, swelling, like a storm; 40
With whom who sails, rides on the surge of fear,
And boils as if he were
In a continual tempest. Now, true Love
No such effects doth prove;
That is an essence far more gentle, fine, 45
Pure, perfect, nay, divine;
It is a golden chain let down from heaven,
Whose links are bright and even,
That falls like sleep on lovers, and combines
The soft and sweetest minds 50
In equal knots: this bears no brands nor darts,
To murther
different hearts,
But in a calm and godlike unity
Preserves community.
O, who is he that in this peace enjoys 55
Th’ elixir of all joys?
A form more fresh than are the Eden bowers,
And lasting as her flowers:
Richer than Time, and as Time’s virtue rare:
Sober, as saddest care; 60
A fixèd thought, an eye untaught to glance:
Who, blest with such high chance,
Would, at suggestion of a steep desire,
Cast himself from the spire
Of all his happiness? But, soft, I hear 65
Some vicious fool draw near,
That cries we dream, and swears there’s no such thing
As this chaste love we sing.
Peace, Luxury, thou art like one of those
Who, being at sea, suppose, 70
Because they move, the continent doth so.
No, Vice, we let thee know,
Though thy wild thoughts with sparrows’ wings do fly,
Turtles can chastely die.
And yet (in this t’ express ourselves more clear) 75
We do not number here
Such spirits as are only continent
Because lust’s means are spent;
Or those who doubt the common mouth of fame,
And for their place and name 80
Cannot so safely sin. Their chastity
Is mere necessity.
Nor mean we those whom vows and conscience
Have filled with abstinence:
Though we acknowledge, who can so abstain 85
Makes a most blessèd gain;
He that for love of goodness hateth ill
Is more crown-worthy still
Than he, which for sin’s penalty forbears:
His heart sins, though he fears. 90
But we propose a person like our Dove,
Grac’d with a Phœnix’ love;
A beauty of that clear and sparkling light,
Would make a day of night,
And turn the blackest sorrows to bright joys: 95
Whose od’rous breath destroys
All taste of bitterness, and makes the air
As sweet as she is fair.
A body so harmoniously composed,
As if nature disclosed 100
All her best symmetry in that one feature!
O, so divine a creature,
Who could be false to? chiefly when he knows
How only she bestows
The wealthy treasure of her love on him; 105
Making his fortunes swim
In the full flood of her admired perfection?
What savage, brute affection
Would not be fearful to offend a dame
Of this excelling frame? 110
Much more a noble and right generous mind
To virtuous moods inclined,
That knows the weight of guilt: he will refrain
From thoughts of such a strain;
And to his sense object this sentence ever, 115
‘Man may securely sin, but safely never.’
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Epitaph on Elizabeth L. H.
Ben Jonson (1573–1637)
WOULDS’T thou hear what man can say
In a little? Reader, stay.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbour give 5
To more virtue than doth live.
If at all she had a fault
Leave it buried in this vault.
One name was Elizabeth,
The other, let it sleep with death, 10
Fitter, where it died, to tell,
Than that it lived at all. Farewell.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
On Lucy, Countess of Bedford
Ben Jonson (1573–1637)
THIS morning timely wrapt with holy fire,
I thought to form unto my zealous Muse,
What kind of creature I could most desire
To know, serve, and love, as Poets use.
I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise, 5
Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great;
I meant the day-star should not brighter rise,
Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat;
I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,
Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride; 10
I meant each softest virtue there should meet,
Fit in that softer bosom to reside.
Only a learnèd, and a manly soul
I purposed her: that should with even powers,
The rock, the spindle, and the shears control 15
Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours.
Such when I meant to feign, and wished to see,
My Muse bade BEDFORD write, and that was she!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
An Ode to Himself
Ben Jonson (1573–1637)
WHERE dost thou careless lie
Buried in ease and sloth?
Knowledge that sleeps, doth die
And this security,
It is the common moth 5
That eats on wits and arts, and that destroys them both.
Are all the Aonian springs
Dried up? lies Thespia waste?
Doth Clarius’ harp want strings,
That not a nymph now sings; 10
Or droop they as disgraced,
To see their seats and bowers by chattering pies defaced?
If hence thy silence be,
As ’tis too just a cause,
Let this thought quicken thee: 15
Minds that are great and free
Should not on fortune pause;
’Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.
What though the greedy fry
Be taken with false baits 20
Of worded balladry,
And think it poesy?
They die with their conceits,
And only piteous scorn upon their folly waits.
Then take in hand thy lyre; 25
Strike in thy proper strain;
With Japhet’s line aspire
Sol’s chariot, for new fire
To give the world again:
Who aided him, will thee, the issue of Jove’s brain. 30
And, since our dainty age
Cannot endure reproof,
Make not thyself a page
To that strumpet the stage;
But sing high and aloof, 35
Safe from the wolf’s black jaw, and the dull ass’s hoof.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Hymn to Diana
Ben Jonson (1573–1637)
QUEEN and Huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair
State in wonted manner keep;
Hesperus entreats thy light, 5
Goddess excellently bright.
Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia’s shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close: 10
Bless us then with wishèd sight,
Goddess excellently bright.
Lay thy bow of pearl apart
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart 15
Space to breathe, how short soever:
Thou that mak’st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
On Salathiel Pavy
A Child of Queen E
lizabeth’s Chapel
Ben Jonson (1573–1637)
WEEP with me, all you that read
This little story;
And know, for whom a tear you shed
Death’s self is sorry.
’Twas a child that so did thrive 5
In grace and feature,
As Heaven and Nature seem’d to strive
Which own’d the creature.
Years he number’d scarce thirteen
When Fates turn’d cruel, 10
Yet three fill’d zodiacs had he been
The stage’s jewel;
And did act (what now we moan)
Old men so duly,
As sooth the Parcæ thought him one, 15
He play’d so truly.
So, by error, to his fate
They all consented;
But, viewing him since, alas, too late!
They have repented; 20
And have sought, to give new birth,
In baths to steep him;
But, being so much too good for earth,
Heaven vows to keep him.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
His Supposed Mistress
Ben Jonson (1573–1637)
IF I freely can discover
What would please me in my lover,
I would have her fair and witty,
Savouring more of court than city;
A little proud, but full of pity; 5
Light and humourous in her toying;
Oft building hopes, and soon destroying;
Long, but sweet in the enjoying,
Neither too easy, nor too hard:
All extremes I would have barred. 10
She should be allowed her passions,
So they were but used as fashions;