Ben Jonson (1572-1637). Virtue Triumphant. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1907. The Book of Elizabethan Verse

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

Virtue Triumphant

By Ben Jonson (1572–1637)


WHO, Virtue, can thy power forget
That sees these live and triumph yet?
Th’ Assyrian pomp, the Persian pride,
Greeks’ glory and the Romans’ died;
And who yet imitate	5
Their noises, tarry the same fate.
Force greatness all the glorious ways
You can, it soon decays;
But so good fame shall never:
Her triumphs, as their causes, are forever.	10