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 | The Workes of Benjamin Jonson |  |
LXXIX. To Elizabeth Countesse Of Rutland.
That Poets are farre rarer births than Kings,Your noblest father prov'd: like whom, before,
Or then, or since, about our Muses springs,
Came not that soule exhausted so their store.
Hence was it, that the Destinies decreed
(Save that most masculine issue of his braine)
No male unto him: who could so exceed
Nature, they thought, in all, that he would faine.
At which, shee happily displeas'd, made you:
On whom, if he were living now, to look,
He should those rare, and absolute numbers view,
As he would burne, or better farre his book.
| The Workes of Benjamin Jonson | |