Thomas Carew

thumb|The magic of a face. Thomas Carew (pronounced like "Carey"; 1595 – 22 March 1640) was an English Cavalier poet. Quotes Poems (1640, '42, '51) thumb|Love no more is madeBy the fireside, but in the cooler shade. Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lostHer snow-white robes, and now no more the frostCandies the grass, or casts an icy creamUpon the silver lake or crystal stream;But the warm sun thaws the benumbèd earth,And makes it tender; gives a second birthTo the dead swallow; wakes in hollow treeThe drowsy cuckoo, and the humble-bee:Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bringIn 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. The Spring, l. 1 [variant: "calls" for "casts"]    Love no more is madeBy the fireside, but in the cooler shade. The Spring Think not, 'cause men flatt'ring say,Y' are fresh as April, sweet as May,Bright as the morning star,That you are so. Persuasions to Love And old folks say there are no painsLike itch of love in agèd veins. Persuasions to Love She hath too much divinity for me:You gods, teach her some more humanity. A Divine Mistress Of such a goddess no times leave record,That burnt the temple where she was adored. A Cruel Mistress So grieves th' advent'rous merchant, when he throwsAll his long-toil'd-for treasure his ship stowsInto the angry main. My Mistress Commanding Me to Return Her Letters If she repent, and would make me amends,Bid her but send me hers, and we are friends. My Mistress Commanding Me to Return Her Letters Then crown my joys, or cure my pain;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. Mediocrity in Love Rejected, st. 1 thumb|Nets of passion’s finest thread,Snaring poems, will be spread,All to catch thy maidenhead. Nets of passion’s finest thread,Snaring poems, will be spread,All to catch thy maidenhead. Good Counsel to a Young Maid, st. 4 Then fly betimes, for only theyConquer Love that run away. Conquest of Flight, st. 2 When thou, poor excommunicateFrom all the joys of love, shalt seeThe full reward and glorious fateWhich my strong faith shall purchase me,Then curse thine own inconstancy. To My Inconstant Mistress If ev'ry sweet, and ev'ry grace,Must fly from that forsaken face. Persuasions to Enjoy I thought Love’s plagues, like dragons, satOnly to fright us at the gate. A Deposition from Love, st. 1 If the stout foe will not resign,When I besiege a town,I lose but what was never mine;But he that is cast downFrom enjoy’d beauty, feels a woeOnly deposèd kings can know. A Deposition from Love, st. 3 Know, Celia (since thou art so proud,)’Twas I that gave thee thy renown.Thou had’st in the forgotten crowdOf common beauties lived unknown,Had not my verse extolled thy name,And with it imped the wings of fame. Ingrateful Beauty Threatened, st. 1 Wise poets, that wrapt Truth in tales,Knew her themselves through all her veils. Ingrateful Beauty Threatened, st. 3 thumb|He that loves a rosy cheek,Or a coral lip admires,Or from star-like eyes doth seekFuel to maintain his fires,—As old Time makes these decay,So his flames must waste away. He that loves a rosy cheek,Or a coral lip admires,Or from star-like eyes doth seekFuel to maintain his fires,—As old Time makes these decay,So his flames must waste away. Disdain Returned, st. 1 But a smooth and steadfast mind,Gentle thoughts and calm desires,Hearts with equal love combined,Kindle never-dying fires. Disdain Returned, st. 2 No tears, Celia, now shall winMy resolved heart to return;I have search'd thy soul within,And find nought but pride and scorn;I have learned thy arts, and nowCan disdain as much as thou. Disdain Returned, st. 3    Nor virtue, wit, or beauty, couldPreserve from death's hand this their heav'nly mould. An Elegy on the La: Pen: Sent to My Mistress Out of France thumb|Such a tempest as when Jove of oldFell down on Danaë in a storm of gold. Thou like a sea of milk shalt lie display’d,Whilst I the smooth calm ocean invadeWith such a tempest, as when Jove of oldFell down on Danaë in a storm of gold;Yet my tall pine shall in the Cyprian straitRide safe at anchor and unlade her freight:My rudder with thy bold hand, like a triedAnd skilful pilot, thou shalt steer, and guideMy bark into love’s channel, where it shallDance, as the bounding waves do rise or fall. A Rapture Though a stranger to this place,Bewail in theirs thine own hard case:For thou perhaps at thy returnMayst find thy darling in an urn. Epitaph: On the Lady Mary Villiers [I], l. 9 thumb|The purest soul that e'er was sentInto a clayey tenement. The purest soul that e'er was sentInto a clayey tenement. Epitaph: On the Lady Mary Villiers [II], l. 1 And here the precious dust is laid,Whose purely tempered clay was madeSo fine that it the guest betrayed.Else the soul grew so fast within,It broke the outward shell of sin,And so was hatched a cherubin. On Maria Wentworth, st. 1 Good to the poor, to kindred dear,To servants kind, to friendship clear,To nothing but herself severe. On Maria Wentworth, st. 5 So though a virgin, yet a brideTo every Grace, she justifiedA chaste polygamy, and died. On Maria Wentworth, st. 6 An untimely grave. On the Duke of Buckingham, l. 5 Compare: "An untimely grave", Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady, Psalm vii The Muses’ garden with pedantic weedsO’erspread, was purged by thee; the lazy seedsOf servile imitation thrown away,And fresh invention planted. An Elegy upon the Death of Dr. John Donne Here lies a king, that ruled as he thought fitThe universal monarchy of wit. An Elegy upon the Death of Dr. John Donne The magic of a face. Epitaph on the Lady S—— Stand still, you floods, do not deface That image which you bear: So votaries, from every place, To you shall altars rear.</p>No winds but lovers' sighs blow here, To trouble these glad streams, On which no star from any sphere Did ever dart such beams. On Sight of a Gentlewoman's Face in the Water, sts. 1–2 But if the envious nymphs shall fear Their beauties will be scorn'd, And hire the ruder winds to tear That face which you adorn'd;Then rage and foam amain, that we Their malice may despise; And from your froth we soon shall see A second Venus rise. On Sight of a Gentlewoman's Face in the Water, sts. 4–5 thumb|Ask me no more where Jove bestows,When June is past, the fading rose;For in your beauty's orient deepThese flowers, as in their causes, sleep. thumb|Ask me no more whither do strayThe golden atoms of the day;For in pure love heaven did prepareThose powders to enrich your hair. Ask me no more where Jove bestows,When June is past, the fading rose;For in your beauty's orient deepThese flowers, as in their causes, sleep.Ask me no more whither do strayThe golden atoms of the day;For in pure love heaven did prepareThose powders to enrich your hair.Ask me no more whither doth hasteThe nightingale, when May is past;For in your sweet dividing throatShe 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 thereFixèd become, as in their sphere.Ask me no more if east or westThe phoenix builds her spicy nest;For unto you at last she flies,And in your fragrant bosom dies. A Song [variants: "Love" for "Jove", "beauties" for "beauty's", punctuation] Give me a wench about thirteen,Already voted to the QueenOf lust and lovers. The Second Rapture, l. 7 This firstling of the infant year. The Primrose, st. 1 Ask me why this flower does showSo yellow-green, and sickly too?Ask me why the stalk is weakAnd bending, yet it doth not break? I will answer: These discoverWhat doubts and fears are in a lover. The Primrose, st. 2 Coelum Britannicum (1634) Thou dost presume too much, poor needy wretch,To claim a station in the firmamentBecause thy humble cottage, or thy tub,Nurses some lazy or pedantic virtueIn the cheap sunshine or by shady springs,With roots and pot-herbs; where thy right hand,Tearing those humane passions from the mind,Upon whose stocks fair blooming virtues flourish,Degradeth nature, and benumbeth sense,And, Gorgon-like, turns active men to stone.We not require the dull societyOf your necessitated temperance,Or that unnatural stupidityThat knows nor joy nor sorrow; nor your forc’dFalsely exalted passive fortitudeAbove the active. This low abject brood,That fix their seats in mediocrity,Become your servile minds; but we advanceSuch virtues only as admit excess,Brave, bounteous acts, regal magnificence,All-seeing prudence, magnanimityThat knows no bound, and that heroic virtueFor which antiquity hath left no name,But patterns only, such as Hercules,Achilles, Theseus. Back to thy loath’d cell;And when thou seest the new enlightened sphere,Study to know but what those worthies were. Mercury Misattributed It is not beauty I demand,   A crystal brow, the moon's despair,Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand,   Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair. The Loveliness of Love, attributed to Anonymous in Francis Turner Palgrave, The Golden Treasury (Cambridge: Sever and Francis, 1861), no. 86, p. 88. Elsewhere attributed to George Darley. Attributed to Carew in S. Austin Allibone, ed., Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1891), p. 62 Quotes about Carew Carew's poems are chiefly songs and 'society verses,' composed, it is said, with great difficulty, but melodious and highly polished, though characterised by the usual conceits and affectation of his time. Augustus Jessopp, "Carew, Thomas", Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 9 (London, 1887), p. 63 Carew's poems, at their best, are brilliant lyrics of the purely sensuous order. They open to us, in his own phrase, "a mine of rich and pregnant fancy." His metrical style was influenced by Jonson and his imagery still more clearly by Donne, for whom he had an almost servile admiration. His intellectual power was not comparable with Donne's, but Carew had a lucidity and directness of lyrical utterance unknown to Donne. It is perhaps his greatest distinction that he is the earliest of the Cavalier song-writers by profession, of whom Rochester is the latest, poets who turned the disreputable incidents of an idle court-life into poetry which was often of the rarest delicacy and the purest melody and colour. The longest and best of Carew's poems, "A Rapture," would be more widely appreciated if the rich flow of its imagination were restrained by greater reticence of taste. Edmund Gosse, "Carew, Thomas", Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. 5 (New York, 1910), p. 328 One might speak of Carew, not in the terms of the "wit of love," but of the wit of male sexual drive, with its notorious tendency not to differentiate among women. A highly self-conscious Epicurean materialist, Carew was known as the "Oracle of Love," yet his honest reductiveness has little enough to do with love, and everything to do with desire and fulfillment. Harold Bloom, The Best Poems of the English Language (New York, 2004), p. 159 External links Category:Poets from England Category:1595 births Category:1640 deaths Category:People from London Category:University of Oxford alumni