Poetry about Elizabeth Sidney, Ben Jonson 2
TO ELIZABETH, COUNTESS OF RUTLAND. & AN EPIGRAM
TO ELIZABETH, COUNTESS OF RUTLAND.
That poets are far rarer births than kings
Your noblest father proved: like whom, before
Came not that soul exhausted so their store.
Hence was it that the destinies decreed
(Save that most masculine issue of his brain)
No male unto him, who could so exceed
Nature, they thought, in all that he would feign;
At which she, happily displeased, made you:
On whom, if he were living now, to look,
He should those rare and absolute numbers view
As he would burn, or better far, his book.
AN EPIGRAM
TO THE HONOURED [ELIZABETH,] COUNTESS OF [RUTLAND]
The wisdom, madam, of your private like
Wherewith this while you live a widowed wife,
And the right ways you take unto the right,
To conquer rumour and triumph on spite;
Not only shunning by your act to do
Aught that is ill, but the suspicion too,
Is of so brave example, as he were
No friend to virtue could be silent here.
The rather when the vices of the time
Are grown so fruitful, and false pleasures climb
By all oblique degrees that killing height
From whence they fall, cast down with their own weight.
And though all praise bring nothing to your name,
Who, herein studying conscience and not fame,
Are in yourself rewarded; yet ’twill be
A cheerful work to all good eyes, to see
Among the daily ruins that fall foul,
Of state, of fame, of body, and of soul,
So great a virtue stand upright to view,
As makes Penelope’s old fable true:
Whilst your Ulysses hath ta’en leave to go,
Countries and climes, manners and men to know.
Only your time you better entertain,
Than the great Homer’s wit for her could feign;
For you admit no company but good,
And when you want those friends, or near in blood,
Or your allies, you make your books your friends,
And study them unto the noblest ends,
Searching for knowledge, and to keep your mind
The same it was inspired, rich, and refined.
These graces, when the rest of ladies view,
Not boasted in your life, but practised true,
As they are hard for them to make their own,
So are they profitable to be known:
For when they find so many meet in one,
It will be shame for them, if they have none.
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