This day says, then, the number of glad years Your vow Must now Strive all right ways it can, T'outstrip your peers: Since he doth lack Of going back Little, whose will Doth urge him to run wrong, or to stand still. Nor weary, rest On what's deceas't. For they, that swell With dust of ancestors, in graves but dwell. "Twill be exacted of your name, whose son, Whose nephew, whose grandchild you are; And men Which must be now, They teach you how, And he that stays To live until to-morrow, hath lost two days. The birth-day shines, when logs not burn, but men. BEN JONSON'S ODE TO HIMSELF UPON THE CENSURE OF HIS "NEW INN" JANUARY, 1630. COME, leave the loathéd stage, Indicting and arraigning every day Something they call a play. Let their fastidious, vain Commission of the brain Run on and rage, sweat, censure and condemn ; Say that thou pour'st them wheat, 'Twere simple fury still thyself to waste To offer them a surfeit of pure bread, If they love lees, and leave the lusty wine, No doubt some mouldy tale, As the shrieve's crusts, and nasty as his fish- Thrown forth, and raked into the common tub, As the best-ordered meal; For who the relish of these guests will fit, And much good do't to you then : Can feed on orts; and, safe in your stage-clothes, The stagers and the stage-wrights too, your peers, With their foul comic socks, Wrought upon twenty blocks; Which if they are torn, and turned, and patched enough, The gamesters share your gilt, and you their stuff. Leave things so prostitute, And take the Alcaic lute, Or thine own Horace, or Anacreon's lyre; And though thy nerves be shrunk, and blood be cold As curious fools, and envious of thy strain, But when they hear thee sing His zeal to God, and his just awe o'er men, Feel such a flesh-quake to possess their powers In sound of peace or wars, In tuning forth the acts of his sweet reign; ON SOMETHING, THAT WALKS SOMEWHERE. AT Court I met it, in clothes brave enough, For I will dare none: Good Lord, walk dead still. TO WILLIAM CAMDEN. CAMDEN! most reverend head, to whom I owe Than thee the age sees not that thing more grave, Which conquers all, be once o'ercome by thee. ON MY FIRST DAUGHTER. HERE lies, to each her parents ruth, At six months end she parted hence With safety of her innocence; Whose soul heaven's Queen, whose name she bears, In comfort of her mother's tears, Hath placed amongst her virgin-train : ON MY FIRST SON. FAREWELL, thou child of my right hand, and joy; Oh, could I lose all father, now! for why, To have so soon 'scaped world's, and flesh's rage, Rest in soft peace, and ask'd, say here doth lie For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such, TO THOMAS LORD CHANCELLOR EGERTON. WHILST thy weighed judgments, EGERTON, I hear, OF LIFE AND DEATH. THE ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds; INVITING A FRIEND TO SUPPER. TO-NIGHT, grave sir, both my poor house and I Not that we think us worthy such a guest, But that your worth will dignify our feast, With those that come; whose grace may make that seem Something, which else would hope for no esteem. It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates The entertainment perfect, not the cates. Ushering the mutton: with a short-legged hen, Lemons and wine for sauce: to these, a coney And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks, |