Thomas Carew

When thou, poor excommunicate From all the joys of love, shalt see The full reward and glorious fate Which my strong faith shall purchase me, Then curse thine own inconstancy. A fairer hand than thine shall cure That heart, which thy false oaths did wound; And to my soul, a soul more pure Than thine shall by Love's hand be bound, And both with equal glory crown'd. Then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain To Love, as I did once to thee; When all thy tears shall be as vain As mine were then, for thou shalt be Damn'd for thy false apostasy.

'Tis true, dear Ben, thy just chastising hand Hath fix'd upon the sotted age a brand To their swoll'n pride and empty scribbling due; It can nor judge, nor write, and yet 'tis true Thy comic muse, from the exalted line Touch'd by thy Alchemist , doth since decline From that her zenith, and foretells a red And blushing evening, when she goes to bed; Yet such as shall outshine the glimmering light With which all stars shall gild the following night. Nor think it much, since all thy eaglets may Endure the sunny trial, if we say This hath the stronger wing, or that doth shine Trick'd up in fairer plumes, since all are thine. Who hath his flock of cackling geese compar'd With thy tun'd choir of swans? or else who dar'd To call thy births deform'd? But if thou bind By city-custom, or by gavelkind, In equal shares thy love on all thy race, We may distinguish of their sex, and place; Though one hand form them, and though one brain strike Souls into all, they are not all alike. Why should the follies then of this dull age Draw from thy pen such an immodest rage As seems to blast thy else-immortal bays, When thine own tongue proclaims thy itch of praise? Such thirst will argue drouth. No, let be hurl'd Upon thy works by the detracting world What malice can suggest; let the rout say, The running sands, that, ere thou make a play, Count the slow minutes, might a Goodwin frame To swallow, when th' hast done, thy shipwreck'd name; Let them the dear expense of oil upbraid, Suck'd by thy watchful lamp, that hath betray'd To theft the blood of martyr'd authors, spilt Into thy ink, whilst thou growest pale with guilt. Repine not at the taper's thrifty waste, That sleeks thy terser poems; nor is haste Praise, but excuse; and if thou overcome A knotty writer, bring the booty home; Nor think it theft if the rich spoils so torn From conquer'd authors be as trophies worn. Let others glut on the extorted praise Of vulgar breath, trust thou to after-days; Thy labour'd works shall live when time devours Th' abortive offspring of their hasty hours. Thou are not of their rank, the quarrel lies Within thine own verge; then let this suffice, The wiser world doth greater thee confess Than all men else, than thyself only less.

Now you have freely given me leave to love, What will you do? Shall I your mirth, or passion move, When I begin to woo; Will you torment, or scorn, or love me too? Each petty beauty can disdain, and I Spite of your hate Without your leave can see, and die; Dispense a nobler fate! ’Tis easy to destroy, you may create. Then give me leave to love, and love me too Not with design To raise, as Love’s cursed rebels do, When puling poets whine, Fame to their beauty, from their blubbered eyne. Grief is a puddle, and reflects not clear Your beauty’s rays; Joys are pure streams, your eyes appear Sullen in sadder lays; In cheerful numbers they shine bright with praise, Which shall not mention to express you fair, Wounds, flames, and darts, Storms in your brow, nets in your hair, Suborning all your parts, Or to betray, or torture captive hearts. I’ll make your eyes like morning suns appear, As mild, and fair; Your brow as crystal smooth, and clear, And your disheveled hair Shall flow like a calm region of the air.

Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream Upon the silver lake or crystal stream; But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth, And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree The drowsy cuckoo, and the humble-bee. Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring In triumph to the world the youthful Spring. The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array Welcome the coming of the long'd-for May. Now all things smile, only my love doth lour; Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold Her heart congeal'd, and makes her pity cold. The ox, which lately did for shelter fly Into the stall, doth now securely lie In open fields; and love no more is made By the fireside, but in the cooler shade Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep Under a sycamore, and all things keep Time with the season; only she doth carry June in her eyes, in her heart January.

Ask me no more where Jove bestows, When June is past, the fading rose; For in your beauty's orient deep These flowers as in their causes, sleep. Ask me no more whither doth stray The golden atoms of the day; For in pure love heaven did prepare Those powders to enrich your hair. Ask me no more whither doth haste The nightingale when May is past; For in your sweet dividing throat She winters and keeps warm her note. Ask me no more where those stars light That downwards fall in dead of night; For in your eyes they sit, and there, Fixed become as in their sphere. Ask me no more if east or west The phoenix builds her spicy nest; For unto you at last she flies, And in your fragrant bosom dies.

Ask me no more where Jove bestows, When June is past, the fading rose; For in your beauty’s orient deep These flowers, as in their causes, sleep. Ask me no more whither do stray The golden atoms of the day; For in pure love heaven did prepare Those powders to enrich your hair. Ask me no more whither doth haste The nightingale, when May is past; For in your sweet dividing throat She winters, and keeps warm her note. Ask me no more where those stars ’light, That downwards fall in dead of night; For in your eyes they sit, and there Fixed become, as in their sphere. Ask me no more if east or west The phoenix builds her spicy nest; For unto you at last she flies, And in your fragrant bosom dies.

Give me more love or more disdain; The torrid, or the frozen zone, Bring equal ease unto my pain; The temperate affords me none; Either extreme, of love, or hate, Is sweeter than a calm estate. Give me a storm; if it be love, Like Danae in that golden show'r I swim in pleasure; if it prove Disdain, that torrent will devour My vulture-hopes; and he's possess'd Of heaven, that's but from hell releas'd. Then crown my joys, or cure my pain; Give me more love, or more disdain.

Know Celia, since thou art so proud, 'Twas I that gave thee thy renown; Thou hadst, in the forgotten crowd Of common beauties, liv'd unknown, Had not my verse exhal'd thy name, And with it imp'd the wings of fame. That killing power is none of thine, I gave it to thy voice, and eyes; Thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine; Thou art my star, shin'st in my skies; Then dart not from thy borrow'd sphere Lightning on him that fix'd thee there. Tempt me with such affrights no more, Lest what I made, I uncreate; Let fools thy mystic forms adore, I'll know thee in thy mortal state; Wise poets that wrapp'd Truth in tales, Knew her themselves, through all her veils.

This little vault, this narrow room, Of Love, and Beauty, is the tomb; The dawning beam that gan to clear Our clouded sky, lies darken'd here, Forever set to us, by death Sent to inflame the world beneath. 'Twas but a bud, yet did contain More sweetness than shall spring again; A budding star that might have grown Into a sun, when it had blown. This hopeful beauty did create New life in Love's declining state; But now his empire ends, and we From fire and wounding darts are free; His brand, his bow, let no man fear, The flames, the arrows, all lie here.

Can we not force from widow'd poetry, Now thou art dead (great Donne) one elegy To crown thy hearse? Why yet dare we not trust, Though with unkneaded dough-bak'd prose, thy dust, Such as th' unscissor'd churchman from the flower Of fading rhetoric, short-liv'd as his hour, Dry as the sand that measures it, should lay Upon thy ashes, on the funeral day? Have we no voice, no tune? Didst thou dispense Through all our language, both the words and sense? 'Tis a sad truth. The pulpit may her plain And sober Christian precepts still retain, Doctrines it may, and wholesome uses, frame, Grave homilies and lectures, but the flame Of thy brave soul (that shot such heat and light As burnt our earth and made our darkness bright, Committed holy rapes upon our will, Did through the eye the melting heart distil, And the deep knowledge of dark truths so teach As sense might judge what fancy could not reach) Must be desir'd forever. So the fire That fills with spirit and heat the Delphic quire, Which, kindled first by thy Promethean breath, Glow'd here a while, lies quench'd now in thy death. The Muses' garden, with pedantic weeds O'erspread, was purg'd by thee; the lazy seeds Of servile imitation thrown away, And fresh invention planted; thou didst pay The debts of our penurious bankrupt age; Licentious thefts, that make poetic rage A mimic fury, when our souls must be Possess'd, or with Anacreon's ecstasy, Or Pindar's, not their own; the subtle cheat Of sly exchanges, and the juggling feat Of two-edg'd words, or whatsoever wrong By ours was done the Greek or Latin tongue, Thou hast redeem'd, and open'd us a mine Of rich and pregnant fancy; drawn a line Of masculine expression, which had good Old Orpheus seen, or all the ancient brood Our superstitious fools admire, and hold Their lead more precious than thy burnish'd gold, Thou hadst been their exchequer, and no more They each in other's dust had rak'd for ore. Thou shalt yield no precedence, but of time, And the blind fate of language, whose tun'd chime More charms the outward sense; yet thou mayst claim From so great disadvantage greater fame, Since to the awe of thy imperious wit Our stubborn language bends, made only fit With her tough thick-ribb'd hoops to gird about Thy giant fancy, which had prov'd too stout For their soft melting phrases. As in time They had the start, so did they cull the prime Buds of invention many a hundred year, And left the rifled fields, besides the fear To touch their harvest; yet from those bare lands Of what is purely thine, thy only hands, (And that thy smallest work) have gleaned more Than all those times and tongues could reap before. But thou art gone, and thy strict laws will be Too hard for libertines in poetry; They will repeal the goodly exil'd train Of gods and goddesses, which in thy just reign Were banish'd nobler poems; now with these, The silenc'd tales o' th'Metamorphoses Shall stuff their lines, and swell the windy page, Till verse, refin'd by thee, in this last age Turn ballad rhyme, or those old idols be Ador'd again, with new apostasy. Oh, pardon me, that break with untun'd verse The reverend silence that attends thy hearse, Whose awful solemn murmurs were to thee, More than these faint lines, a loud elegy, That did proclaim in a dumb eloquence The death of all the arts; whose influence, Grown feeble, in these panting numbers lies, Gasping short-winded accents, and so dies. So doth the swiftly turning wheel not stand In th' instant we withdraw the moving hand, But some small time maintain a faint weak course, By virtue of the first impulsive force; And so, whilst I cast on thy funeral pile Thy crown of bays, oh, let it crack awhile, And spit disdain, till the devouring flashes Suck all the moisture up, then turn to ashes. I will not draw the envy to engross All thy perfections, or weep all our loss; Those are too numerous for an elegy, And this too great to be express'd by me. Though every pen should share a distinct part, Yet art thou theme enough to tire all art; Let others carve the rest, it shall suffice I on thy tomb this epitaph incise: Here lies a king, that rul'd as he thought fit The universal monarchy of wit; Here lie two flamens, and both those, the best, Apollo's first, at last, the true God's priest.