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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Echo’s Lament of Narcissus (from Cynthia’s Revels)

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Ben Jonson (1572–1637)

Echo’s Lament of Narcissus (from Cynthia’s Revels)

[Acted 1600, Act I, Sc. 1.]

SLOW, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears:

Yet slower, yet; O faintly, gentle springs:

List to the heavy part the music bears,

Woe weeps out her division, when she sings.

Droop herbs and flowers,

Fall grief in showers,

Our beauties are not ours;

O, I could still,

Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,

Drop, drop, drop, drop,

Since nature’s pride is now a withered daffodil.