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!
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
- Epitaph on Elizabeth, L. H.
- Inviting a Friend to Supper
- My Picture Left in Scotland
- Ode to Himself
- On English Monsieur
- On Gut
- 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