I Eat Poetry

Come, My Celia

Come, my Celia, let us prove
While we may, the sports of love;
Time will not be ours forever;
He at length our good will sever.
Spend not then his gifts in vain.
Suns that set may rise again;
But if once we lose this light,
'Tis with us perpetual night.
Why should we defer our joys?
Fame and rumor are but toys.
Cannot we delude the eyes
Of a few poor household spies,
Or his easier ears beguile,
So removed by our wile?
'Tis no sin love's fruit to steal;
But the sweet theft to reveal.
To be taken, to be seen,
These have crimes accounted been.

Jonson, Ben. The Forest. 1616.

Ben Jonson (1572-1637) was an English Jacobean dramatist, lyric poet, and literary critic who is generally regarded as the second most influential English dramatist behind William Shakespeare. Surprisingly, Jonson's formal education was brief. He worked as a bricklayer and a soldier in Netherlands before returning to England, where he wrote for Philip Henslowe -- the leading impresario for the public theater. Jonson's reputation was established with the successful presentation of "The Masque of Blackness" at court in 1605. Jonson's major comedies expressed a cynicism toward his current way of life, often by pointing out its follies and vices. Jonson is credited with transforming character dramatization in the comedy of the Restoration, and for influencing the scores of playwrights who would follow him. He served as the first Poet Laureate of England from 1619 to 1637.