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<ins class="caption">JONSON</ins> <div class="figright"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_014.jpg" height-obs="640" width-obs="235" alt="Jonson entertaining a lady." /></div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> O rare Ben Jonson, you who wrote "To Celia," Presager of that later note ,"Bedelia," To you, rare Ben, our hat we raise For all your poems and your plays. </div> <div class="stanza"> You knew, forsooth, if Shakespeare's work Was taken, Like copies by a scrawling clerk, From Bacon; You would have known of that flimflam Without a hidden cryptogram. </div> <div class="stanza"> O rare Ben Jonson, with your pen You labored, And with brave lords and gentlemen You neighbored— You never turned out feeble farce In sentences that would not parse. </div> <div class="stanza"> To managers you ne'er were made To grovel, And, Ben, you never called a spade A shovel— Where you wrote sentences risqu� We now have costumes very gay. </div> <div class="stanza"> O rare Ben Jonson, when you asked That lady To drink, her name you never masked As "Sadie," Nor did you call her "Creole Belle" Or half the song names we might tell. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Drink to me only with thine eyes!" Your sighing Showed you no steins of any size Were buying. But from the way the stanzas run, You, rare Ben Jonson, were well done. </div> </div> <div style="clear: both;"></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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