It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make Man better be,
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night –
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures Life may perfect be. [Footnote: Ben Jonson.]
From Ben Jonson’s Pindaric ode To the immortall memorie, and friendship of that noble paire, Sir Lucius Cary, and Sir H Morison.
Cary was married to Lettice, daughter of Sir Richard Morison of Tooley Park in Leicestershire.
Why memorie? Cary was killed in the Civil War at Newbury, after Jonson’s death. The ode is on the death (as far as I can tell natural) in 1629, at the age of twenty, of his brother-in-law.
A Study of History, Vol VII, OUP, 1954
