Ben Jonson: On My First Sonne

Ben Jonson was an English poet and playwright contemporary with (and admirer of and rival to) William Shakespeare. His seven-year-old son Benjamin died in the plague; Jonson responded by writing the following heartbreaking poem. Reading it always makes me tear up.

On My First Sonne

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;

My sinne was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy;

Seven yeeres tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay,

Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.

O, could I loose all father, now. For why

Will man lament the state he should envie?

To have so soon scap'd worlds and fleshes rage,

And, if no other miserie, yet age?

Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say here doth lye

Ben. Johnson his best piece of poetrie.

For whose sake, hence-forth, all his vowes be such,

As what he loves may never like too much.

For the the analytical type, here's a useful explanation of some elements of the poem.

Jonson also lost his first daughter, Mary, in infancy, and wrote her a beautiful elegy (here rendered in more modern spelling). This took place ten years before his son's death. Somehow it's more hopeful than, or at least not as devastatingly sad as, the tribute to his son. I think it reads more like a headstone engraving.

On My First Daughter

Here lies, to each her parents' ruth,

Mary, the daughter of their youth;

Yet, all heaven's gifts, being heaven's due,

It makes the father less to rue.

At six months' end, she parted hence,

With safety of her innocence;

Whose soul heaven's queen, whose name she bears,

In comfort of her mother's tears,

Hath placed amongst her virgin-train;

Where, while that severed doth remain,

This grave partakes the fleshly birth;

Which cover lightly, gentle earth!

Jonson wrote a lot of really beautiful poetry. Maybe I'll return to some of it at a later day. To end this blog entry, here's a poem most of us have heard at some time or another, probably in a mid-20th-century song, without being aware of its origin. (For the record, while Jonson's wife's name is not known with certainty -- the best guess is Ann Lewis -- it wasn't Celia.)

To Celia

Drink to me, only, with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise,

Doth ask a drink divine:

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,

I would not change for thine.

I sent thee, late, a rosy wreath,

Not so much honouring thee,

As giving it a hope, that there

It could not withered be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe,

And sent'st back to me:

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

Not of itself, but thee.