MY PICTURE, LEFT IN SCOTLAND

by Ben Jonson

I now think, Love is rather deaf than blind,
    For else it could not be,
              That she
    Whom I adore so much, should so slight me,
And cast my suit behind :
I'm sure my language to her was as sweet,
        And every close did meet
        In sentence of as subtil feet,
        As hath the youngest he
        That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree.

        Oh ! but my conscious fears,
            That fly my thoughts between,
            Tell me that she hath seen
        My hundreds of gray hairs
        Told seven and forty years,
    Read so much waste as she cannot embrace
    My mountain belly and my rocky face,
And all these, through her eyes, have stopt her ears.




Source:
The Songs and Poems of Ben Jonson.
London: Philip Allan & Co., 1924. 43.
Back to Works of Ben Jonson

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