Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AN ELEGY (6), by BEN JONSON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: By those bright eyes, at whose immortal fires Last Line: Is constant to be extraordinary. | ||||||||
By those bright eyes, at whose immortal fires Love lights his torches to inflame desires, By that fair stand, your forehead, whence he bends His double bow, and round his arrows sends; By that tall grove, your hair; whose globy rings He flying curls, and crispeth, with his wings; By those pure baths your either cheek discloses, Where he doth steep himself in milk and roses; And lastly by your lips, the bank of kisses, Where men at once may plant, and gather blisses: Tell me (my loved friend) do you love or no? So well as I may tell in verse, 'tis so? You blush, but do not: friends are either none, (Though they may number bodies) or but one. I'll therefore ask no more, but bid you love; And so that either may example prove Unto the other; and live patterns, how Others in time may love, as we do now. Slip no occasion; as time stands not still, I know no beauty, nor no youth that will. To use the present, then, is not abuse; You have a husband is the just excuse Of all that can be done him; such a one As would make shift, to make himself alone, That which we can, who both in you, his wife, His issue, and all circumstance of life, As in his place, because he would not vary, Is constant to be extraordinary. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A CELEBRATION OF CHARIS: 4. HER TRIUMPH by BEN JONSON A CELEBRATION OF CHARIS: 5. HIS DISCOURSE WITH CUPID by BEN JONSON A FIT OF RHYME AGAINST RHYME [OR, RIME] by BEN JONSON A NYMPH'S PASSION by BEN JONSON A SONNET, TO THE NOBLE LADY, THE LADY MARY WROTH by BEN JONSON AN ODE TO HIMSELF by BEN JONSON ANSWER TO MASTER WITHER'S SONG, 'SHALL I, WASTING IN DESPAIR?' by BEN JONSON EPICOENE; OR, THE SILENT WOMAN: FREEDOM IN DRESS by BEN JONSON EPIGRAM: 118. ON GUT by BEN JONSON |
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