Ben Jonson. An Elegy. [By those bright eyes].

Ben Jonson

U N D E R W O O D S . MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. XXXVI. — AN ELEGY. By those bright eyes, at whose immortal fires Love lights his torches to inflame desires ; By that fair stand, your forehead, whence he bends His double bow, and round his arrows sends ; By that tall grove, your hair, whose globy rings He flying curls, and crispeth with his wings ; By those pure baths your either cheek discloses, Where he doth steep himself in milk and roses ; And lastly, by your lips, the bank of kisses, Where men at once may plant and gather blisses : Tell me, my lov'd friend, do you love or no ? So well as I may tell in verse, 'tis so ? You blush, but do not : — friends are either none, Though they may number bodies, or but one. I'll therefore ask no more, but bid you love, And so that either example prove Unto the other ; and live patterns, how Others, in time, may love as we do now. Slip no occasion ; as time stands not still, I know no beauty, nor no youth that will. To use the present, then, is not abuse, You have a husband is the just excuse Of all that can be done him ; such a one As would make shift to make himself alone That which we can ; who both in you, his wife, His issue, and all circumstance of life, As in his place, because he would not vary, Is constant to be extraordinary.
Source: Jonson, Ben. The Works of Ben Jonson. Boston: Phillips, Sampson, and Co., 1853. 822.

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