Poem by Ben Jonson

Why I Write Not of Love

SOME act of LOVE'S bound to rehearse,
I thought to bind him in my verse :
Which when he felt, Away, quoth he,
Can poets hope to fetter me ?
It is enough, they once did get
Mars and my mother, in their net :
I wear not these my wings in vain.
With which he fled me ;  and again,
Into my rhymes could ne'er be got
By any art :  then wonder not,
That since, my numbers are so cold,
When Love is fled, and I grow cold.

1. Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke
2. To Censorious Courtling
3. His Supposed Mistress
4. Queen and Huntress
5. To Francis Beaumont

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