Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Descriptive Poems: I. Personal: Great Writers

On the Portrait of Shakespeare

Ben Jonson (1572–1637)

THIS figure, that thou here seest put,

It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;

Wherein the Graver had a strife

With Nature to outdo the life:

O, could he but have drawn his wit

As well in brass, as he hath hit

His face; the Print would then surpass

All that was ever writ in brass.

But since he cannot, Reader, look

Not at his picture, but his book.