Ben Jonson Poems

The decorously informative church
Guide to Sex suggested that any urge
could well be controlled by playing tennis:
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The ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds:
Through which our merit leads us to our meeds.
How wilful blind is he, then, that would stray,
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Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are
Life of the Muses' day, their morning star!
If works, not th' author's, their own grace should look,
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Ere cherries ripe, and strawberries be gone;
Unto the cries of London I'll add one;
Ripe statesmen, ripe: they grow in ev'ry street;
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Men, if you love us, play no more
The fools or tyrants with your friends,
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In all faith, we did our part:
generated punctually, prepared adequately,
ejected promptly,
and swam in the approved manner
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On the happy entrace of Iames, our Soveraigne, to His first high Session of Parliament in this his Kingdome, the 19 of March, 1603.
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Camden, most reverend head, to whom I owe
  All that I am in arts, all that I know
(How nothing's that!), to whom my country owes
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He smashed his hand
in opening a door for her,
and less pain than
embarrassment shrieked through him.
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My awkward grossness grows: I go down, through

I maintain my self in the conviction
that I have as much to say as others
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