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
How near to good is what is fair!
Wherein the graver had a strife / With Nature to out-do the life.
It is not growing like a tree / In bulk, doth make men better be.
Such sweet neglect more taketh me, / Than all the adulteries of art; / They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
Lady, it is to be presumed, / Though art's hid causes are not found, / All is not sweet, all is not sound.
Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike; One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.
Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man.
Still to be neat, still to be drest, / As you were going to a feast.
That for which all virtue now is sold, and almost every vice- almighty gold
Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears; / Yet slower yet, O faintly, gentle springs.
The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end.
Twas only fear first in the world made gods.
Follow a shadow, it still flies you,Seem to fly it, it will pursue.So court a mistress, she denies you;Let her alone, she will court you.Say, are not women truly, thenStyled but the shadows of us men?
Follow a shadow, it still flies you, Seem to fly it, it will pursue. So court a mistress, she denies you; Let her alone, she will court you. Say, are not women truly, then Styled but the shadows of us men?