Ben Jonson


  U  N  D  E  R  W  O  O  D  S .

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.


XCII. — TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE HIEROME,   

LORD WESTON,   

AN ODE GRATULATORY, FOR HIS RETURN FROM HIS EMBASSY,
MDCXXXII.

    Such pleasure as the teeming earth
    Doth take in easy nature's birth,
When she puts forth the life of every thing ;
    And in a dew of sweetest rain,
    She lies deliver'd without pain,
Of the prime beauty of the year, the Spring.

    The rivers in their shores do run,
    The clouds rack clear before the sun,
The rudest winds obey the calmest air ;
    Rare plants from every bank do rise,
    And every plant the sense suprise,
Because the order of the whole is fair !

    The very verdure of her nest,
    Wherein she sits so richly drest,
As all the wealth of season there was spread,
    Doth shew the Graces and the Hours
Have multiplied their arts and powers,
    In making soft her aromatic bed.

    Such joys, such sweets, doth your return
    Bring all your friends, fair lord, that burn
With love, to hear your modesty relate,
    The business of your blooming wit,
    With all the fruit shall follow it,
Both to the honor of the king and state.

    O how will then our court be pleas'd.
    To see great Charles of travail eas'd,
When he beholds a graft of his own hand,
    Shoot up an olive, fruitful, fair,
    To be a shadow to his heir,
And both a strength and beauty to his land !


 

Source:
Jonson, Ben.  The Works of Ben Jonson.
Boston: Phillips, Sampson, and Co., 1853. 840.


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