They know they see, however absent,) is
Here our best hay-maker (forgive me this;
It is our country's style): in this warm shine
I lie, and dream of your full Mermaid wine.
What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one from whom they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life; then where there hath been thrown
Wit able enough to justify the town
For three days past: wit that might warrant be For the whole city to talk foolishly,
Till that were cancell'd; and when that was gone, We left an air behind us, which alone
Was able to make the two next companies
Right witty; though but downright fools, mere
Bring me to thee, who canst make smooth and
The way of knowledge for me, and then I,
Who have no good but in thy company,
Protest it will my greatest comfort be
To acknowledge all I have to flow from thee.
Ben, when these scenes are perfect we'll taste
I'll drink thy Muse's health, thou shalt quaff mine.
From Verses to My dear friend
Master Ben Jonson, upon his Fox.
I WOULD have shown,
To all the world, the art, which thou alone
Hast taught our tongue, the rules of time, of place,
And other rites, deliver'd with the grace
Of comic style, which only, is far more
Than any English stage hath known before.
To my friend Mr. John Fletcher upon his Faithful Shepherdess.
I KNOW too well, that, no more than the man
That travels through the burning deserts, can,
When he is beaten with the raging sun,
Half smother'd with the dust, have power to run
From a cool river, which himself doth find,
Ere he be slaked; no more can he, whose mind
Joys in the Muses, hold from that delight,
When Nature and his full thoughts bid him write.
Yet wish I those, whom I for friends have known,
To sing their thoughts to no ears but their own.
Why should the man, whose wit ne'er had a stain,
Upon the public stage present his vein,
And make a thousand men in judgment sit,
To call in question his undoubted wit,
Scarce two of which can understand the laws
Which they should judge by, nor the party's cause?
Among the rout, there is not one that hath
In his own censure an explicit faith;
One company, knowing they judgment lack,
Ground their belief on the next man in black;
Others, on him that makes signs, and is mute;
Some like, as he does in the fairest suit ;
He, as his mistress doth; and she, by chance;
Nor want there those, who, as the boy doth dance
Between the acts, will censure the whole play;
Some like if the wax-lights be new that day;
But multitudes there are, whose judgment goes
Headlong according to the actors' clothes.
For this, these public things and I agree
So ill, that, but to do a right to thee,
I had not been persuaded to have hurl'd
These few ill-spoken lines into the world;
Both to be read and censured of by those
Whose very reading makes verse senseless prose;
Such as must spend above an hour to spell
A challenge on a post, to know it well.
But since it was thy hap to throw away
Much wit, for which the people did not pay,
Because they saw it not, I not dislike
This second publication, which may strike
Their consciences, to see the things they scorn'd,
To be with so much wit and art adorn'd.
Besides, one vantage more in this I see,
Your censurers must have the quality
Of reading, which I am afraid is more
Than half your shrewdest judges had before.
To Beaumont on his Poems. [1610
THE matchless lust of a fair poesy,
Which was erst buried in old Rome's decays,
Now 'gins with heat of rising majesty,
Her dust-wrapt head from rotten tomb to raise, And with fresh splendour gilds her fearless crest, Rearing her palace in our poet's breast.
The wanton Ovid, whose enticing rimes
Have with attractive wonder forced attention, No more shall be admired at; for these times Produce a poet, whose more rare invention Will tear the love-sick myrtle from his brows, To adorn his temples with deservèd boughs.
The strongest marble fears the smallest rain;
The rusting canker eats the purest gold.
Honour's best dye dreads envy's blackest stain;
The crimson badge of beauty must wax old :
But this fair issue of thy fruitful brain,
Nor dreads age, envy, cankering rust, or rain.
To Ben Jonson on Volpone.
FORGIVE thy friends; they would, but cannot praise
Enough the wit, art, language of thy plays;
Forgive thy foes; they will not praise thee. Why?
Thy fate hath thought it best they should envỳ.
Faith, for thy Fox's sake, forgive then those
Who are not worthy to be friends, nor foes.
Or, for their own brave sake, let them be still
Fools at thy mercy, and like what they will.
From Verses to my worthy friend,
Ben Jonson, on his Catiline.
BUT, O thou happy man, that must not die,
As these things shall; leaving no more behind
But a thin memory, like a passing wind
That blows, and is forgotten, ere they are cold.
Thy labours shall outlive thee; and, like gold
Stampt for continuance, shall be current, where
There is a sun, a people, or a year.
THEN, ho! most strangely intellectual fire
That, proper to my soul, hast power to inspire
Her burning faculties, and with the wings
Of thy unsphered flame visit'st the springs
Of spirits immortal, now (as swift as Time
Doth follow motion) find the eternal clime
Of his free soul whose living subject stood
Up to the chin in the Pierian flood.
To his loving friend, Mr. John Fletcher, concerning his Pastoral being both a Poem and a Play.
THERE are no sureties, good friend, will be taken
For works that vulgar good-name hath forsaken.
A poem and a play too! Why, 'tis like
A scholar that's a poet: their names strike
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