On the best of English Poets, BEN: IONSON, Deceased
So seemes a Starre to shoot: when from our sight
Falls the deceit, not from its losse of light;
We want use of a Soule, who meerely know
What to our passion, or our sense we owe:
By such a hollow glasse, our cozen'd eye
Concludes alike, All dead, whom it sees die.
Nature is knowledge here, but un-refin'd,
Both differing, as the Body from the Mind:
Lawrell and Cypresse else had grown together,
And wither'd without Memory to either:
Thus undistinguish'd, might in every part
The Sons of Earth vie with the Sons of Art.
Forbid it, (holy Reverence) to his NAME,
Whose glory hath fil'd up the Booke of Fame!
Where in faire Capitals, free, uncontroul'd,
IOHNSON, a worke of Honour lives inroul'd;
Creates that Booke a Worke; adds this farre more,
'Tis finish'd what unperfect was before.
The Muses, first in Greece begot, in Rome
Brought forth, our best of poets have cald home,
Nurst, taught, and planted here; that Thames now sings
The Delphian Altars and the sacred sSprings.
By Influence of this Soveraigne, like the Spheres,
Mov'd each by other, the most low (in yeares)
Contented   in their harmony; though some
Malignantly aspected, overcome
With popular opinion, aym'd at Name
More then desert: yet in despite of shame
Ev'n they though foyl'd by his contempt of wrongs,
Made musique to the harshnes of their songs.
Drawne to the life of every line and limbe,
Hee (in his truth of Art, and that in him)
Lives yet, and will, whiles letters can be read
The losse is ours; now hope of life is dead.
Great men, and worthy of Report, must fall
Into their earth, and sleeping there sleep all:
Since He, whose pen in every straine did use
To drop a Verse, and every Verse a Muse,
Is vow'd to heaven; as having with faire glory,
Sung thankes of Honour, or some nobler Story.
The Court, the Vniversitie, the heat
Of Theaters, with what can else beget
Beliefe, and admiration, cleerely prove
Our POET first in merit, as in love:
Yet if He doe not as his full appeare,
Survey him in his WORKES, and know him there.

IOHN FORD

(sigs. H1v-2r)