Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some PoemsJonson, Ben
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Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some Poems
Jonson, Ben
Commonplace books; English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700; Miscellanea
He entered well, by virtuous parts,
Got up, and thrived with honest arts;
He purchased friends, and fame, and honours then,
And had his noble name advanced with men:
But weary of that flight,
He stooped in all men’s sight
To sordid flatteries, acts of strife,
And sunk in that dead sea of life,
So deep, as he did then death’s waters sup,
But that the cork of title buoyed him up.
THE COUNTER-TURN
Alas! but Morison fell young:
He never fell,—thou fall’st, my tongue.
He stood a soldier to the last right end,
A perfect patriot, and a noble friend;
But most, a virtuous son.
All offices were done
By him, so ample, full, and round,
In weight, in measure, number, sound,
As, though his age imperfect might appear,
His life was of humanity the sphere.
THE STAND
Go now, and tell out days summed up with fears,
And make them years;
Produce thy mass of miseries on the stage,
To swell thine age;
Repeat of things a throng,
To show thou hast been long,
Not lived: for life doth her great actions spell.
By what was done and wrought
In season, and so brought
To light: her measures are, how well
Each syllabe answered, and was formed, how fair;
These make the lines of life, and that’s her air!
III.
THE TURN
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make men better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:
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.
THE COUNTER-TURN
Call, noble Lucius, then for wine,
And let thy looks with gladness shine:
Accept this garland, plant it on thy head
And think, nay know, thy Morison’s not dead
He leaped the present age,
Possessed with holy rage
To see that bright eternal day;
Of which we priests and poets say,
Such truths, as we expect for happy men:
And there he lives with memory and Ben.
THE STAND
Jonson, who sung this of him, ere he went,
Himself to rest,
Or taste a part of that full joy he meant
To have expressed,
In this bright Asterism!
Where it were friendship’s schism,
Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry,
To separate these twi-
Lights, the Dioscouri;
And keep the one half from his Harry,
But fate doth so alternate the design
Whilst that in heaven, this light on earth must shine.
IV.
THE TURN
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