On My First Son
FAREWELL, thou child of my right hand, and joy;My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy;Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.Oh! could I lose all father, now! for why,Will man lament the state he should envy?To have so soon ’scaped world’s, and flesh’s rage,And, if no other misery, yet age!Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lieBen Jonson his best piece of poetry;For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,As what he loves may never like too much.
Words in this poem
- henceforth adv.
- From this time forward; henceforward.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On My First Son is in the public domain. This text is taken from Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #5134; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ben Jonson, On My First Son, in Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some Poems (1616), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5134, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/jonson-poems/on-my-first-son.html, id L23799.
Form and metre
On My First Son is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABBC-DDC-EE joyA · boyA · payB · dayB · whyC · envy · rageD · ageD · lieC · poetry · suchE · muchE
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| FAREWELL, thou child of my right hand, and joy; | 10 | ·/········ |
| My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy; | 10 | ·········· |
| Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay, | 11 | /·········· |
| Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. | 10 | ˘/˘······· |
| Oh! could I lose all father, now! for why, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Will man lament the state he should envy? | 10 | ··˘/····/˘ |
| To have so soon ’scaped world’s, and flesh’s rage, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And, if no other misery, yet age! | 10 | ···/˘/˘˘·· |
| Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie | 10 | ·········· |
| Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘˘ |
| For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, | 10 | ···//····· |
| As what he loves may never like too much. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.