On My First Sonne
By Ben Jonson

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
   My sinne was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy
Seven yeeres tho’wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
   Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I loose all father, now. For why
   Will man lament the state he should envie?
   To have so soone scap’d worlds, and fleshes rage,
And, if no other miserie, yet age?
   Rest in soft peace, and, ask’d, say here doth lye
Ben. Jonson his best piece of poetrie.
   For whose sake, hence-forth, all his vowes be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.