Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (98 page)
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Authors: Homer,William Shakespeare
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;
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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
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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;
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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
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
A Child of Queen Elizabeth’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;
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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
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;
Sometimes froward, and then frowning,
Sometimes sickish, and then swowning,
Every fit with change still crowning.
15
Purely jealous I would have her;
Then only constant when I crave her,
’Tis a virtue should not save her.
Thus, nor her delicates would cloy me,
Neither her peevishness annoy me.
20
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare and What He Hath Left Us
Prefixed to the First Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s Plays
Ben Jonson (1573–1637)
TO draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither man nor Muse can praise too much.
’Tis true, and all men’s suffrage. But these ways
5
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For seeliest Ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
Or blind Affection, which doth ne’er advance
The truth, but gropes and urgeth all by chance;
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Or crafty Malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin where it seem’d to raise.
These are as some infamous bawd or whore
Should praise a matron. What could hurt her more?
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
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Above the ill-fortune of them, or the need.
I, therefore, will begin. Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage,
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
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A little further, to make thee a room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses;
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I mean, with great but disproportion’d Muses.
For, if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee, surely, with thy peers.
And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe’s mighty line.
30
And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence, to honour thee, I would not seek
For names; but call forth thund’ring Aeschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead
35
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread
And shake a stage; or when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone, for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth; or since did from their ashes come.
40
Triumph, my Britain! Thou hast one to show
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
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Our ears, or, like a Mercury, to charm.
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joy’d to wear the dressing of his lines,
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
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The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated and deserted lie,
As they were not of Nature’s family.
Yet must I not give Nature all! Thy art,
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My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the Poet’s matter Nature be
His art doth give the fashion. And that he
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat
(Such as thine are), and strike the second heat
60
Upon the Muses’ anvil, turn the same
(And himself with it), that he thinks to frame;
Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn!
For a good Poet’s made as well as born;
And such wert thou! Look how the father’s face
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Lives in his issue; even so, the race
Of Shakespeare’s mind and manners brightly shines
In his well-turnèd and true-filèd lines;
In each of which he seems to shake a lance
As brandish’d at the eyes of Ignorance.
70
Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our water yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza, and our James!
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
75
Advanc’d, and made a constellation there!
Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage
Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage;
Which since thy flight from hence hath mourn’d like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume’s light.
80
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
