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This day says, then, the number of glad years
Are justly summed, that make you man ;

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.

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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

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Which must be now,

They teach you how,

And he that stays

To live until to-morrow, hath lost two days.

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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,
And the more loathsome age;
Where pride and impudence, in faction knit,
Usurp the chair of wit!

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 ;
They were not made for thee, less thou for them.

Say that thou pour'st them wheat,
And they will acorns eat;

'Twere simple fury still thyself to waste
On such as have no taste!

To offer them a surfeit of pure bread,
Whose appetites are dead!
No, give them grains their fill,
Husks, draff to drink and swill:

If they love lees, and leave the lusty wine,
Envy them not, their palate's with the swine.

No doubt some mouldy tale,
Like Pericles and stale

As the shrieve's crusts, and nasty as his fish-
Scraps, out of every dish

Thrown forth, and raked into the common tub,
May keep up the Play-club:
There, sweepings do as well

As the best-ordered meal;

For who the relish of these guests will fit,
Needs set them but the alms-basket of wit.

And much good do't to you then :
Brave plush and velvet-men,

Can feed on orts; and, safe in your stage-clothes,
Dare quit, upon your oaths,

The stagers and the stage-wrights too, your peers,
Of larding your large ears

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;
Warm thee by Pindar's fire:

And though thy nerves be shrunk, and blood be cold
Ere years have made thee old,
Strike that disdainful heat
Throughout, to their defeat,

As curious fools, and envious of thy strain,
May, blushing, swear no palsy 's in thy brain.

But when they hear thee sing
The glories of thy king,

His zeal to God, and his just awe o'er men,
They may, blood-shaken then,

Feel such a flesh-quake to possess their powers
As they shall cry, "Like ours,

In sound of peace or wars,
No harp e'er hit the stars,

In tuning forth the acts of his sweet reign;
And raising Charles his chariot 'bove his wain."

ON SOMETHING, THAT WALKS SOMEWHERE.

AT Court I met it, in clothes brave enough,
To be a courtier; and looks grave enough,
To seem a statesman: as I near it came,
It made me a great face; I asked the name
A Lord, it cried, buried in flesh and blood,
And such from whom let no man hope least good,
For I will do none; and as little ill,

For I will dare none: Good Lord, walk dead still.

TO WILLIAM CAMDEN.

CAMDEN! most reverend head, to whom I owe
All that I am in arts, all that I know;
(How nothing's that?) to whom my country owes
The great renown, and name wherewith she goes!

Than thee the age sees not that thing more grave,
More high, more holy, that she more would crave.
What name, what skill, what faith hast thou in things!
What sight in searching the most antique springs!
What weight, and what authority in thy speech!
Men scarce can make that doubt, but thou canst teach.
Pardon free truth, and let thy modesty,

Which conquers all, be once o'ercome by thee.
Many of thine, this better could, than I ;
But for their powers, accept my piety.

ON MY FIRST DAUGHTER.

HERE lies, to each her parents ruth,
Mary, the daughter of their youth;
Yet all heaven's gifts being heaven's due,
It makes the father less to rue.

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 :
Where while that, severed, doth remain,
This grave partakes the fleshly birth ;
Which cover lightly, gentle earth!

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 thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.

Oh, could I lose all father, now! for why,
Will man lament the state he should envy?

To have so soon 'scaped 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.

TO THOMAS LORD CHANCELLOR EGERTON.

WHILST thy weighed judgments, EGERTON, I hear,
And know thee then a judge, not of one year;
Whilst I behold thee live with purest hands ;
That no affection in thy voice commands;
That still thou 'rt present to the better cause;
And no less wise than skilful in the laws;
Whilst thou art certain to thy words, once gone,
As is thy conscience, which is always one :
The Virgin, long since fled from earth, I see,
To our times returned, hath made her heaven in thee.

OF LIFE AND DEATH.

THE ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds;
Through which our merit leads us to our meeds.
How wilful blind is he, then, that would stray,
And hath it in his powers to make his way!
This world death's region is, the other life's;
And here, it should be one of our first strifes,
So to front death, as men might judge us past it:
For good men but see death, the wicked taste it.

INVITING A FRIEND TO SUPPER.

TO-NIGHT, grave sir, both my poor house and I
Do equally desire your company:

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.
Yet shall you have, to rectify your palate,
An olive, capers, or some better sallet

Ushering the mutton: with a short-legged hen,
If we can get her full of eggs, and then

Lemons and wine for sauce: to these, a coney
Is not to be despaired of for our money;

And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks,
The sky not falling, think we may have larks.

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