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Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson

A Celebration of Charis: I. His Excuse for Loving

Let it not your wonder move,
Less your laughter, that I love.
Though I now write fifty years,
I have had, and have, my peers;
Poets, though divine, are men,
Some have lov’d as old again.
And it is not always face,
Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace;
Or the feature, or the youth.
But the language and the truth,
With the ardour and the passion,
Gives the lover weight and fashion.
If you then will read the story,
First prepare you to be sorry
That you never knew till now
Either whom to love or how;
But be glad, as soon with me,
When you know that this is she
Of whose beauty it was sung;
She shall make the old man young,
Keep the middle age at stay,
And let nothing high decay,
Till she be the reason why
All the world for love may die.

#Couplet

Other works by Ben Jonson...
Song From the Silent Woman

Still to be neat, still to be dres… As you were going to a feast; Still to be powdered, still perfum… Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art’s hid causes are not fo…
Occupation: Father

My son finds occupation in almost nothing, in everything: my soapy penitential toothpaste, his mother’s loosened hair orts, containers, useless things;
On my First Son

Farewell, thou child of my right h… My sin was too much hope of thee,… Seven years tho’ wert lent to me,… Exacted by thy fate, on the just d… O, could I lose all father now! F…
Song to Celia II

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…
“Still to be neat, still to be dressed”

Still to be neat, still to be dres… As you were going to a feast; Still to be powdered, still perfum… Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art’s hid causes are not fo…
In the Ember Days of my Last Free Summer

In the ember days of my last free… here I lie, outside myself, watchi… the gross body eating a poor curry… satisfied at what I have done, sca… I have to do in my last free winte…
A Farewell to the World

FALSE world, good night! since t… That hour upon my morn of age; Henceforth I quit thee from my th… My part is ended on thy stage. Yes, threaten, do. Alas! I fear
XIII: Epistle: to Katherine, Lady Aubigny

'Tis growne almost a danger to spe… Of any good minde, now: There are… The bad, by number, are so fortifi… As what th’have lost t’expect, the… So both the prais’d, and praisers…
Venus’ Runaway

Beauties, have ye seen this toy, Called Love, a little boy, Almost naked, wanton, blind; Cruel now, and then as kind? If he be amongst ye, say?
An Elegy

Though beauty be the mark of prais… And yours of whom I sing be such As not the world can praise too mu… Yet ’tis your virtue now I raise. A virtue, like allay, so gone
His Excuse for Loving

Let it not your wonder move, Less your laughter, that I love. Though I now write fifty years, I have had, and have, my peers. Poets, though divine, are men;
III: to Sir Robert Wroth

How blest art thou, canst love the… Whether by choyce, or fate, or bot… And, though so neere the Citie, a… Art tane with neithers vice, nor s… That at great times, art no ambiti…
The Noble Balm

HIGH-SPIRITED friend, I send nor balms nor cor’sives to… Your fate hath found A gentler and more agile hand to t… The cure of that which is but corp…
So Breaks the Sun

So breaks the sun earth’s rugged c… Wherein rude winter bound her vein… So grows both stream and source of… That lately fettered were with ice… So naked trees get crisped heads,
To Fool or Knave

Thy praise or dispraise is to me a… One doth not stroke me, nor the ot…



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