BEN JONSON.

BORN ABOUT 1570-DIED 1637.

TO CELIA.

Kisse me, sweet : the wary lover
Can your favours keepe, and cover,
When the common courting jay
All your bounties will betray.
Kisse againe : no creature comes.
Kisse, and score up wealthy summes
On my lips, thus hardly sundred,
While you breathe. First give a hundred,
Then a thousand, then another
Hundred, then unto the tother
Adde a thousand, and so more :
Till you equall with the store
All the grasse that Rumney yields,
Or the sands in Chelsey fields,
Or the drops in silver Thames,
Or the stars that gild his streames,
In the silent sommer-nights,
When youths ply their stoln delights.
That the curious may not know
How to tell 'em as they flow,
And the envious, when they find
What their number is, be pin’d.

SONG TO CELIA.

DRINK to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kisse but in the cup,

And I'll not looke for wine.
The thirst, that from the soule doth rise,

Doth aske a drink divine :
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,

I would not change for thine.

I sent thee, late, a rosie wreath,

Not so much honoring thee,
As giving it a hope, that there

It could not withered be.
But thou thereon did'st only breathe,

And sent'st it back to me:
Since when, it growes,

and smells, I sweare, Not of itselfe, but thee.

THE SWEET NEGLECT.

STILL to be neat, still to be drest
As you were going to a feast ;
Still to be powdered, still perfum'd :
Lady, it is to be presum'd,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.
Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such eet neglect more taketh me

Than all th' adulteries of art ;
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

TO THE WORLD.

A FAREWELL FOR A GENTLEWOMAN, VIRTUOUS AND NOBLE.

FALSE world, good night, since thou hast brought

That houre upon my morne of age,
Henceforth I quit thee from my thought,

My part is ended on thy stage.
Doe not once hope, that thou canst tempt

A spirit so resolv'd to tread
Upon thy throat, and live exempt

From all the nets that thou canst spread. I know thy formes are studied arts,

Thy subtill wayes, be narrow straits ; Thy curtesie but sudden starts,

And what thou call'st thy gifts are baits. I know too, though thou strut and paint,

Yet art thou both shrunke up, and old ; That onely fooles make thee a saint,

And all thy good is to be sold. I know thou whole art but a shop

Of toyes, and trifles, traps, and snares, To take the weake, or make them stop :

Yet art thou falser than thy wares. And, knowing this, should I yet stay,

Like such as blow away their lives, And never will redeme a day,

Enamor'd of their golden gyves ? Or having scap'd, shall I returne,

And thrust my neck into the noose,

From whence, so lately, I did burne,

With all my powers, my selfe to loose ? What bird, or beast, is knowne so dull,

That fled his cage, or broke his chaine,
And tasting aire, and freedome, will

Render his head in there againe ?
If these, who have but sense, can shun

The engines that have them annoy'd ;
Little, for me, had reason done,

If I could not thy ginnes avoid.

SONG OF NIGHT.

IN THE MASQUE OF THE VISION OF DELIGHT.

BREAK, Phant'sie, from thy cave of cloud,

And spread thy purple wings; Now all thy figures are allow'd,

And various shapes of things ; Create of airy forms a stream, It must have blood, and nought of phlegm ; And though it be a waking dream,

Cho. Yet let it like an odour rise

To all the senses here,
And fall like sleep upon their eyes,

Or music in their ear.

SONG FROM THE MASQUE OF BEAUTY.
So Beauty on the waters stood,
When Love had sever'd earth from flood !
So when he parted ayre from fire,
He did with concord all inspire !
And then a motion he them taught,
That elder than himselfe was thought.
Which thought was yet the child of earth,
For Love is elder than his birth.

RICHARD CORBET.

BORN 1582-DIED 1635.

This jovial and facetious prelate, who might have sat for the

portrait of the Clerk of Copmanhurst, was a native of Ewell in Surrey. His talents were of the kind which, in certain circumstances, promote a man's interest independently of principles, or the strict decencies of the sacred office. From being made one of the chaplains of James I., he was successively promoted to the deanery of Christ Church and the bishoprics of Oxford and Norwich. His poems strongly indicate great constitutional gaiety, and a flow of high animal spirits not devoid of a certain warmth and heartiness, which almost resembles the careless ebullition of genius. Whatever were the fail. ings of this convivial prelate, he was no hypocrite. ·After he was in orders, and, indeed, doctor of divinity, it is related, that a ballad-singer, at Abingdon, came into the house where he was, complaining that nobody would buy