My Picture Left in Scotland
My Picture Left in Scotland
Original Text
Ben Jonson, The workes of Benjamin Jonson (London: R. Bishop, sold by A. Crooke, 1640). STC 14754. stc Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto). Also British Library copy as microfilmed in English Books 1475-1640. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms. P & R 14754 * 20250.
2For else it could not be
3 That she,
4Whom I adore so much, should so slight me
5And cast my love behind.
6I'm sure my language to her was as sweet,
7And every close did meet
8In sentence of as subtle feet,
9As hath the youngest He
10That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree.
11O, but my conscious fears,
12That fly my thoughts between,
13Tell me that she hath seen
14My hundred of gray hairs,
15Told seven and forty years
16Read so much waste, as she cannot embrace
18And all these through her eyes have stopp'd her ears.
Notes
1] Works, 1640, but composed in 1619-20, as line 15 suggests. Back to Line
17] my rocky face. Dekker thus satirized Jonson's face in Satiro-mastix, 1602: "full of pockey-holes and pimples,'' "full of oylet-holes, like the cover of a warming pan." Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1640
RPO poem Editors
F. D. Hoeniger
RPO Edition
3RP 1.158.
Rhyme