His Excuse for Loving

1572 –

1637

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 loved 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 ardor and the passion, 
Gives the lover weight and fashion.
If you then would hear 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 hear 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 hide decay,
Till she be the reason why
All the world for love may die.

This poem is in the public domain.

The Noble Nature

     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	        
          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.

Ben Jonson

1640

Epigrams: On my First Son

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; 
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy. 
Seven years tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay, 
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. 
O, could I lose all father now! For why 
Will man lament the state he should envy? 
To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage, 
And if no other misery, yet age? 
Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say, "Here doth lie 
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry." 
For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such, 
As what he loves may never like too much.

Ben Jonson

1616

Where dost thou careless lie Buried in ease and sloth? Knowledge that sleeps, doth die And this security, It is the common moth That eats on wits and arts, and that destroys them both. Are all the Aonian springs Dried up?

Poems

His Excuse for Loving

More by this poet

The Noble Nature

Epigrams: On my First Son

An Ode to Himself

Poems

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His Excuse for Loving

More by this poet

The Noble Nature

Epigrams: On my First Son

An Ode to Himself

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