The wonders of all- ruling Providence;
" from celestial Merry flow; Essential beauty; perfect excellence, Ennable and refine the native glow The pock foch feels - and thence his best resource
To paint this Sealings with unéliment ofree.
To nature, the best judge of what was fit; The deepest, plainest, highest, clearest pen; The voice most echoed by consenting men; The soul which answered best to all well said By others, and which most requital made; Tuned to the highest key of ancient Rome, Returning all her music with his own; In whom, with nature, study claimed a part, And yet who to himself owed all his art : Here lies Ben Jonson! every age will look With sorrow here, with wonder on his book. JOHN CLEVELAND.
MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart : Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
TO THE MEMORY OF BEN JONSON.
THE Muse's fairest light in no dark time, The wonder of a learned age; the line
Which none can pass the most proportioned wit,
This poem has sometimes, but surely without much reason, been attributed to Shakespeare.
Say how or when Shall we, thy guests, Meet at those lyric feasts, Made at the Sun,
The Dog, the Triple Tun; Where we such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad; And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.
Or send to us
Thy wit's great overplus ;
But teach us yet
Wisely to husband it,
Lest we that talent spend:
And having once brought to an end
That precious stock, the store
Of such a wit, the world should have no more.
WHEN I a verse shall make, Know I have prayed thee, For old religion's sake, Saint Ben, to aid me.
Make the way smooth for me, When I, thy Herrick, Honoring thee, on my knee Offer my lyric.
Candles I'll give to thee,
And a new altar;
And thou, Saint Ben, shalt be
Writ in my psalter.
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