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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Song before the Entry of the Masquers (from The Fortunate Isles)

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

Ben Jonson (1572–1637)

Song before the Entry of the Masquers (from The Fortunate Isles)

[From The Fortunate Isles and their Union, 1625.]

SPRING all the graces of the age,

And all the loves of time;

Bring all the pleasures of the stage,

And relishes of rhyme;

Add all the softnesses of courts,

The looks, the laughters and the sports;

And mingle all their sweets and salts,

That none may say the triumph halts.