Wouldst thou hear what man can say
In a little? Reader, stay.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbour give
To more virtue than doth live.
If at all she had a fault,
Leave it buried in this vault.
One name was Elizabeth,
Th' other let it sleep with death:
Fitter, where it died to tell,
Than that it liv'd at all. Farewell.
Ben Jonson’s “Song to Celia” is known to millions as “Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes.” Jonson was educated at the prestigious Westminster School in London. He took up acting, and by 1597 he was writing original plays. Jonson’s first widely acclaimed play, Every Man in His Humour, included William Shakespeare in its cast.
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Poems by Ben Jonson
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More poems by Ben Jonson (35 poems)
- A Sonnet to the Noble Lady, the Lady Mary Wroth
- An Elegy
- An Epitaph on S.P.
- An Ode to Himself
- Cynthia's Revels: Queen and huntress, chaste and fair
- Epicoene, or the Silent Woman: Still to be neat, still to be drest
- Epigrams: On my First Son
- Inviting a Friend to Supper
- My Picture Left in Scotland
- Ode to Himself
- On English Monsieur
- On Gut
- On My First Daughter
- On Playwright
- On Spies
- Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount
- Song to Celia
- Song: To Celia
- Though I Am Young and Cannot Tell
- To Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland
- To Fool or Knave
- To Heaven
- To John Donne
- To Lucy, Countess of Bedford, with John Donne's Satires
- To Penshurst
- To Sir Henry Cary
- To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of That Noble Pair, Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Morison
- To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare
- To the Reader
- Volpone: Come my Celia, let us prove