Ben Jonson
Song to Celia
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
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 honoring thee,
As giving it a hope, that there
It could not withered be.
But thou thereon did’st only breathe
And sent’st it back to me:
Since when it grows and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.
Long Life
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make men 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
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 beauty see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.
Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke
Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother;
Death, ere thou hast slain another,
Learn’d and fair and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.
The Thankless Muse
O this would make a learned and liberal soul
To rive his stainéd quill up to the back,
And damn his long-watched labours to the fire—
Things that were born when none, but the still night
And his dumb candle, saw his pinching throes;
Were not his own free merit a more crown,
Unto his travails than their reeling claps.115
This ’tis that strikes me silent, seals my lips,
And apts me rather to sleep out my time,
Than I would waste it in contemnéd strifes
With these vile Ibidés,116 these unclean birds
That make their mouths their clysters, and still purge
From their hot entrails. But I leave the monsters
To their own fate. And, since the Comic Muse
Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try
If tragedy have a more kind aspect:
Her favors in my next I will pursue,
Where, if I prove the pleasure but of one,
So he judicious be, he shall be alone
A theater unto me. Once I’ll ‘say117
To strike the ear of time in those fresh strains,
As shall, beside the cunning of their ground,
Give cause to some of wonder, some despite,
And more despair to imitate their sound.
I, that spend half my nights and all my days
Here in a cell, to get a dark pale face,
To come forth worth the ivy or the bays,
And in this age can hope no other grace—
Leave me! There’s something come into my thought
That must and shall be sung high and aloof,
Safe from the wolf’s black jaw and the dull ass’s hoof.118
Notes
115 Applauses.
116 Plural of ibis.
117 That is, I will try once for all.
118 That is, envy and stupidity.