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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


WHY I WRITE NOT OF LOVE by BEN JONSON

Poet Analysis

First Line: SOME ACT OF LOVE'S BOUND TO REHEARSE
Last Line: WHEN LOVE IS FLED, AND I GROW OLD.
Subject(s): LOVE; WRITING & WRITERS;

Some act of Love's bound to rehearse,
I thought to bind him, in my verse:
Which when he felt, Away (quoth he)
Can poets hope to fetter me?
It is enough, they once did get
Mars, and my mother, in their net:
I wear not these my wings in vain.
With which he fled me: and again,
Into my rhymes could ne'er be got
By any art. Then wonder not,
That since, my numbers are so cold,
When Love is fled, and I grow old.




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