`Your Worth Will Dignifie Our Feast'

“To-night, grave sir, both my poore house, and I
Doe equally desire your companie:
Not that we thinke us worthy such a guest,
But that your worth will dignifie our feast,
With those that come…”

David Myers returns to A Commonplace Blog after leaving Texas and setting up shop in my home state, Ohio (our paths have never quite intersected in time or space). As he says at the end of his six-week absence: “It is past time to reignite the conversation. Let’s begin again.” The rhythm and sentiment echo the opening lines of Ben Jonson’s “Inviting a Friend to Supper,” cited above. The poem is an invitation, a welcome, to David and all readers: Come, join us, help yourself, enjoy the feast. Jonson concludes with these words:

“No simple word
That shall be utter'd at our mirthfull board
Shall make us sad next morning : or affright
The libertie, that wee'll enjoy to-night.”