It is Not Growing Like a Tree
by Benjamin Jonson

English dramatist and poet, perhaps still best known as the dramatic rival of his more famous contemporary, Shakespeare. His most renowned works are the two comedies Volpone (1605-6) and The Alchemist (1610) and the satirical tragedy Sejanus (1603). Other important works include the satirical The Devil is an Ass (1616), Epicone, or The Silent Woman (1609) and Bartholomew's Fair (1614). The first and perhaps most enduring of the famous comedies of humour, with which Jonson's name is chiefly associated today, was his Every Man in his Humour (1598).

Other dramatic works include Every Man Out of His Humour (1599), Cynthia's Revels (1600), The Poetaster (1601), Catiline (1611), The Staple of News (1625), The New Inn (1629) and The Magnetic Lady (1632). Perhaps the most important of his non-dramatic works is his collection of prose pieces Timber; or Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matters (1640). He also wrote non-dramatic poetry that influenced the form of the later lyric verse, in particular the verse of Andrew Marvell and of the Cavalier poets.

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It is Not Growing Like a Tree
by Benjamin Jonson

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.

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It is Not Growing Like a Tree by Benjamin Jonson