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In spite of some enlightening commentaries, there remain large untouched areas of meaning in Jonson's “On My First Sonne.”1 Then again, the poem shows new facets of significance when seen in the perspective of its genetic companion piece, “On My First Davghter,” a poem, however, with its own intrinsic value. It is the son who receives the more memorable lines:
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and ioy;My sinne was too much hope of thee, lou'd boy,Seuen yeeres tho'wert lent to me, and I thee pay,Exacted by thy fate, on the iust day.O, could I loose all father now. For whyWill man lament the state he should enuie?To haue so soone scap'd worlds, and fleshes rage,And, if no other miserie, yet age?Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say here doth lye