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On my First Son. By Ben Jonson. Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy. Seven years tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay, Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. O, could I lose all father now!
- An Elegy
An Elegy. By Ben Jonson. Though beauty be the mark of...
- An Elegy
‘On My First Sonne’, Ben Jonson’s short poem for his son Benjamin, who died aged seven, is one of the most moving short elegies in the English language. Some analysis of this touching tribute to the poet’s young son may help to show why the poem means so much to modern readers.
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- On My First Son Analysis
- About Ben Jonson
‘On my First Son’ by Ben Jonsonis a poem about a father who has lost a young son, and attempts to distance himself from the tragedy in numerous ways. ‘On My First Son’ by Ben Jonson is a verse lamenton the dead son of the poet. The poet in the first few lines talks about his ill fate to wish too much for his child. He says he has been justly paid b...
‘On My First Son’ by Ben Jonson can be described as an elegy or epitaph. Twelve lines long, it is written in iambic pentameter in rhyming couplets. These coupletscould be indicative of the strong bond between father and son and the controlled form of the verse may be a means by which the poet tries to manage his grief. There is extensive use of ass...
‘On My First Son’ by Ben Jonson has an interesting rhyme scheme. It is composed of both a regular rhyme scheme and an imperfect rhyme scheme. The poet employs the closed couplet form to rhyme the lines internally. However, there are certain areas where the rhyme breaks. It shows the state of mind of the poet while he was writing this poem. Likewise...
‘On My First Son’ by Ben Jonson makes use of metaphors to make the poet’s thoughts more lively to the readers. Likewise, “child of my right hand”, is a metaphorthat portrays a child holding his father’s right hand while walking. In the third line, “Seven years tho’ wert lent to me…” the poet uses the metaphor of an object that was lent to him. He r...
‘On My First Son’ by Ben Jonson contains several themes that are important concerning the subject matter of the poem. The most important theme of the poem is death. In the poem, the poet mourns his son’s early death. In the moodof grief, he suddenly realizes death is an envious state. It lightens the soul from its worldly and fleshy pain. Death som...
‘On My First Son’ by Ben Jonson presents the poet’s loss of his seven-year-old child. He is a father as well as an overlooker in the poem. As a father at first, his tone is more sympathetic and grievous. Whereas in the penultimate section, his tone turns objective. He comments on mortality by keeping a safe distance. His tone has a cold and calm ou...
Lines 1–4
‘On My First Son’ by Ben Jonson details the basis for this poem in the first four lines. He has lost his son who was only able to see “[s]even years” of life. The child, oddly, is treated as a transaction of sorts in that he is labeled as something that has been “lent” to the narrator, and now must be “pa[id]” back, as if the situation were a business contract. This creates an almost mechanical atmosphereto the poem, like any emotion present in the lines is slipping through the cracks of the...
Lines 5–8
These lines take the poem to an even stranger plateau in that grief is the latest aspect that the narrator wants to relinquish. This is a concept that could feel curious to the reader, despite the narrator’s earlier desire for emotional separation. What parent, after all, could try to push asidegrief in favor of “envy” of a child who has passed on? Once more though, what could be taken as hardhearted could also be the narrator’s struggles to cope with his loss. Perhaps in his mind, rationaliz...
Lines 9–12
In contrast to the previous lines, this quartet is given as if spoken directly to the child. The narrator’s message to that child begins with the instruction to “[r]est in soft peace,” which is a variation of the standard “rest in peace” since the narrator has injected “soft” into the equation. This once more indicates that while the narrator wishes to distance himself from the situation and the grief, “soft[ness]” cannot help but creep into his emotions and reactions. Literally, the word sur...
Ben Jonson (1572 – 1637) was an English playwright, poet, and literary critic and was rumored to be a rival of William Shakespeare. ‘On My First Son’, with its heartfelt message of grief, is a marked departure from the scathing works of satire for which he was famed during his lifetime. Jonson was a controversial figure, who seemed to be forever ge...
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Jul 20, 2020 · Jonson’s statement in each of these poems is doctrinal and exemplary, involving resignation to the will of God, but part of the power of the affirmation of belief arises from Jonson’s undertone of grief over which faith has won out.
‘On My First Daughter’ by Ben Jonson is a single stanza poem that’s made up of twelve lines. The lines utilize a simple rhyme scheme of couplets, following the pattern of AABBCC, and so on, changing end sounds as the poet saw fit.
- Female
- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
Apr 15, 2020 · The first tradition that Jonson inherited is what the scholar Wesley Trimpi, in his seminal Ben Jonson’s Poems: A Study of the Plain Style (1962), and John Williams, in his introduction to the second edition of English Renaissance Poetry: A Collection of Shorter Poems from Skelton to Jonson (1990), identify as the native tradition.
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An Elegy. By Ben Jonson. Though beauty be the mark of praise, And yours of whom I sing be such. As not the world can praise too much, Yet ’tis your virtue now I raise. A virtue, like allay, so gone. Throughout your form, as, though that move. And draw and conquer all men’s love,
