"Have you seen but a bright lily grow
Before rude hands have touch'd it?
Have you mark'd but the fall of the snow
Before the soil hath smutch'd it?
Have you felt the wool of the beaver,
Or swan's down ever?
Or have smelt of the bud of the brier,
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she!"
Ben Jonson (1572-1637), British dramatist, poet. A Celebration of Charis in Ten Lyrick Peeces (l. 21-30). . .
The Complete Poems [Ben Jonson]. George Parfitt, ed. (1988) Penguin. |
"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 ardour and the passion,
Gives the lover weight and fashion."
Ben Jonson (1572-1637), British dramatist, poet. A Celebration of Charis in Ten Lyrick Peeces (l. 1-12). . .
The Complete Poems [Ben Jonson]. George Parfitt, ed. (1988) Penguin. |
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