Now that the harth is crown'd with smiling fire, <br />And some do drink, and some do dance, <br />Some ring, <br />Some sing, <br />And all do strive t'advance <br />The gladnesse higher: <br />Wherefore should I <br />Stand silent by. <br />Who not the least, <br />Both love the cause, and authors of the feast. <br />Give me my cup, but from the Thespian Well, <br />That I may tell to Sydney, what <br />This day <br />Doth say, <br />And he may think on that <br />Which I do tell: <br />When all the noyse <br />Of these forc'd joyes, <br />Are fled and gone, <br />And he, with his best Genius left alone. <br />This day says, then, the number of glad yeares <br />Are justly summ'd, that make you man; <br />Your vow <br />Must now <br />Strive all right ways it can, <br />T'out-strip your peeres: <br />Since he doth lack <br />Of going back <br />Little, whose will <br />Doth urge him to run wrong, or to stand still. <br />Nor can a little of the common store, <br />Of nobles vertue, shew in you; <br />Your blood <br />So good <br />And great, must seek for new, <br />And study more: <br />Nor weary, rest <br />On what's deceast. <br />For they, that swell <br />With dust of ancestors, in graves but dwell. <br />'Twill be exacted of your name, whose sonne, <br />Whose nephew, whose grand-child you are; <br />And men <br />Will, then, <br />Say you have follow'd farre, <br />When well begun: <br />Which must be now, <br />They teach you, how. <br />And he that stayes <br />To liue untill to morrow 'hath lost two dayes. <br />So may you live in honor, as in name, <br />If with this truth you be inspir'd; <br />So may <br />This day <br />Be more, and long desir'd: <br />And with the flame <br />Of love bee bright, <br />As with the light <br />Of bone-fires. Then <br />The Birth-day shines, when logs not burne, but men.<br /><br />Ben Jonson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/xiv-ode-to-sir-william-sydney-on-his-birth-day/
