Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonsonwas an English playwright, poet, actor and literary critic of the 17th century, whose artistry exerted a lasting impact upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours. He is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour, Volpone, or The Foxe, The Alchemistand Bartholomew Fayre: A Comedyand for his lyric poetry; he is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth11 June 1572
Lady, it is to be presumed, / Though art's hid causes are not found, / All is not sweet, all is not sound.
It is not growing like a tree / In bulk, doth make men better be.
Underneath this stone doth lie / As much beauty as could die.
Have you seen but a bright lily grow, / Before rude hands have touched it? / Have you marked but the fall o' the snow / Before the soil hath smutched it? . . . O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!
Such sweet neglect more taketh me, / Than all the adulteries of art; / They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears; / Yet slower yet, O faintly, gentle springs.
If you be sick, your own thoughts will make you sick
If he were / To be made honest by an act of parliament, / I should not alter in my faith of him.
Good morning to the day: and next, my gold! - / Open the shrine that I may see my saint.
The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end.
I do hold it, and will affirm it before any prince in Europe, to be the most sovereign and precious weed that ever the earth rendered to the use of man.
In his adversity I ever prayed, that God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want.
Each petty hand Can steer a ship becalm'd; but he that will Govern and carry her to her ends, must know His tides, his currents, how to shift his sails; What she will bear in foul, what in fair weathers; Where her springs are, her leaks, and how to stop 'em; What strands, what shelves, what rocks do threaten her.