(1598?-1639)
homas Carew is deservedly placed among the most brilliant representatives of a class of lyrists who were not only courtiers but men of rank; who, varied in accomplishments, possessing culture and taste, expressed their play of fancy with elegance and ease. The lyre of these aristocratic poets had for its notes only love and beauty, disdain, despair, and love's bounty, sometimes frivolous in sound and sometimes serious; and their work may be regarded as the ancestor of the vers de société, which has reached its perfection in Locker and Austin Dobson. To Carew's lyrics we may apply Izaak Walton's famous criticism: "They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good."
Thomas Carew, son of Sir Matthew Carew, was born in London about 1598. He left Corpus Christi, Oxford, without a degree, and early fell into wild habits. In 1613 his father wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton that "one of his sons was roving after hounds and hawks, and the other [Thomas] studying in the Middle Temple, but doing little at law." The result was that Carleton made Thomas his secretary, and took him to Venice and Turin, returning in 1615. Carew accompanied him to the Hague also, but resigned his post and again returned to England. In 1619 he went with Lord Herbert of Cherbury to the French court. He became sewer in ordinary to Charles I., and a gentleman of his privy chamber; and the King, who was particularly fond of him, gave him the royal domain of Sunninghill in Windsor Forest. Carew was an intimate friend of Ben Jonson, Sir John Suckling, John Selden, Sir Kenelm Digby, Davenant, Charles Cotton, and also of Lord Clarendon; who writes:—"Carew was a person of a pleasant and facetious wit, and made many poems (especially in the amorous way) which for the sharpness of the fancy and the elegance of the language in which that fancy was spread, were at least equal, if not superior, to any of that time."
Four editions of Carew's poems appeared between 1640 and 1671, and four have been printed within the present century, the best being a quarto published by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt in 1870. His longest work was a masque called 'Cœlum Britannicum,' performed at Whitehall, February 18th, 1633. Inigo Jones arranged the scenery, Henry Lawes the music, and the King, the Duke of Lennox, and other courtiers played the chief parts. Carew's death is supposed to have occurred in 1639.
A SONG
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
These 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 downward fall in dead of night;
For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixèd 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.
THE PROTESTATION
No more shall meads be deckt with flowers,
Nor sweetness dwell in rosy bowers,
Nor greenest buds on branches spring,
Nor warbling birds delight to sing,
Nor April violets paint the grove,
If I forsake my Celia's love.
The fish shall in the ocean burn,
And fountains sweet shall bitter turn;
The humble oak no flood shall know,
When floods shall highest hills o'erflow;
Black Lethe shall oblivion leave,
If e'er my Celia I deceive.
Love shall his bow and shaft lay by,
And Venus's doves want wings to fly;
The Sun refuse to shew his light,
And day shall then be turned to night;
And in that night no star appear,
If once I leave my Celia dear.
Love shall no more inhabit earth,
Nor lovers more shall love for worth,
Nor joy above the heaven dwell,
Nor pain torment poor souls in hell;
Grim death no more shall horrid prove,
If I e'er leave bright Celia's love.
SONG
Would you know what's soft? I dare
Not bring you to the down, or air,
Nor to stars to shew what's bright,
Nor to snow to teach you white;
Nor, if you would music hear,
Call the orbs to take your ear;
Nor, to please your sense, bring forth
Bruisèd nard, or what's more worth;
Or on food were your thoughts placed,
Bring you nectar, for a taste:
Would you have all these in one,
Name my mistress, and 'tis done.
THE SPRING
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 benumbèd earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo and the bumble-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 longed-for May.
Now all things smile; only my love doth lower;
Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power
To melt that marble ice which still doth hold
Her heart congealed, 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 Cloris sleep
Under a sycamore, and all things keep
Time with the season—only she doth carry
June in her eyes, in her heart January.
THE INQUIRY[1]
Amongst the myrtles as I walked,
Love and my sighs together talked;
Tell me (said I in deep distress)
Where I may find my shepherdess?
Thou fool (said Love), know'st thou not this,—
In everything that's good she is:
In yonder tulip go and seek;
There thou mayst find her lip, her cheek.
In yonder enameled pansy by,
There thou shalt have her curious eye;
In bloom of peach, in rosy bud,
There wave the streamers of her blood;
In brightest lilies that there stands,
The emblems of her whiter hands;
In yonder rising hill there swells
Such sweets as in her bosom dwells.
'Tis true (said I), and thereupon
I went to pluck them one by one,
To make of parts a union;
But on a sudden all was gone.
With that I stopped. Said Love, These be
(Fond man) resemblances of thee;
And in these flowers thy joys shall die,
Even in the twinkling of an eye,
And all thy hopes of her shall wither,
Like these short sweets thus knit together.
[1] Attributed to Herrick in Drake's 'Literary Hours.'