Think what with them they would do
Who, without them, dare to woo :
And, unless that mind I see,
What care I though great she be?
Great, or good, or kind, or fair,
I will ne'er the more despair :
If she love me, this believe,
I will die ere she shall grieve;
If she slight me when I woo,
I can scorn and let her go;
For, if she be not for me,
What care I for whom she be?
THOMAS CAREW.
(1589-1639.)
THOMAS CAREW was of an ancient Gloucestershire family. He studied at Oxford, travelled abroad, and was appointed by Charles I. a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and Sewer in Ordinary to the King. The songs of Carew were extremely popular in the reign of Charles, and are still notable for a certain courtly richness of expression. At his death his works were collected and published in London, with the title Poems, Songs, and Sonnets, 1640. The volume included a Masque, called Calum Britannicum, which had been acted in 1633 in the Banqueting House at Whitehall by the King in person and several young noblemen of his Court.
MY MISTRESS COMMANDING ME TO RETURN HER LETTERS.
So grieves the adventurous merchant, when he throws
All the long-toiled-for treasure his ship stows
Into the angry main to save from wrack
Himself and men, as I grieve to give back
These letters: yet so powerful is your sway
As, if you bid me die, I must obey.
Go then, blest papers! You shall kiss those hands
That gave you freedom but hold me in bands;
Which with a touch did give you life; but I,
Because I may not touch those hands, must die.
Methinks, as if they knew they should be sent
Home to their native soil from banishment,
I see them smile,-like dying Saints that know
They are to leave the earth and toward Heaven go.
When you return, pray tell your sovereign,
And mine, I gave you courteous entertain:
Each line received a tear, and then a kiss;
First bathed in that, it 'scaped unscorched from this :
I kissed it because your hand had been there,
But, 'cause it was not now, I shed a tear.
Tell her, no length of time nor change of air,
No cruelty, disdain, absence, despair,
No, nor her steadfast constancy, can deter
My vassal heart from ever honouring her.
Though these be powerful arguments to prove
I love in vain, yet I must ever love.
Say, if she frown when you that word rehearse,
Service in prose is oft called love in verse:
Then pray her, since I send back on my part
Her papers, she will send me back my heart.
He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires,
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.
But a smooth and stedfast mind,
Gentle thoughts, and calm desires,
Hearts with equal love combined,
Kindle never-dying fires:
Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheeks, or lips, or eyes.
No tears, Celia, now shall win
My resolved heart to return:
I have searched thy soul within,
And find nought but pride and scorn;
I have learnt thy arts, and now
Can disdain as much as thou:
Some Power in my revenge, convey
That love to her I cast away!
WILLIAM BROWNE was among the youngest in the series of poets who may be called junior Spenserians. He was still a child when Spenser died, and Spenser had been dead fourteen years when he published his first poem, called Britannia's Pastorals. These pastorals consisted of a series of 66 Songs" or parts, connected by a thin thread of story. The human incident is, however, quite secondary to the exquisite descriptions of English rural scenery with which the poem abounds. The Shepherd's Pipe, a series of seven Eclogues, 1614, and The Inner Temple Masque, 1620, complete the sum of Browne's extant works. In 1624, when he was still only thirty-four years old, he returned to Oxford, where he had once been a student, as tutor to Robert Dormer, afterwards Earl of Caernarvon; and the University on this occasion gave him the degree of M.A. with unusual honours. He became eventually a retainer of the Pembroke family; obtained in their service sufficient wealth to purchase an estate; settled, it is believed, in Devonshire, his native county; and died there in 1645. There has seldom been a case in our literary history of such unusual promise of excellence so completely and suddenly stunted, and with no apparent reason.
FROM BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS.
As I have seen upon a bridal day
Full many maids, clad in their best array
In honour of the bride, come with their flaskets
Filled full with flowers, others in wicker baskets
Bring from the marish1 rushes to o'erspread
The ground whereon to church the lovers tread,
Whilst that the quaintest2 youth of all the plain
Ushers their way with many a piping strain;
So, as in joy at this fair river's birth,
Triton came upon a channel with his mirth,
2 Neatest, daintiest.
And called the neighbouring nymphs, each in her turn,
To pour their pretty rivulets from their urn,
To wait upon this new-delivered spring.
Some, running through the meadows, with them bring
Cowslip and mint; and 'tis another's lot
To light upon some gardener's curious knot,
Whence she upon her breast, love's sweet repose,
Doth bring the queen of flowers, the English rose.
Some from the fen bring reeds, wild thyme from downs,
Some from a grove the bay that poets crowns;
Some from an aged rock the moss hath torn,
And leaves him naked unto winter's storm;
Another from her banks, in mere good-will,
Brings nutriment for fish, the camomill.
Thus all bring somewhat, and do overspread
The way the spring unto the sea doth tread.
THE SHEPHERDS' DANCING-GREEN.
Thus went they on: and Remond did discuss
Their cause of meeting, till they won with pacing
The circuit chosen for the maidens' tracing.1
It was a roundel seated on a plain,
That stood as sentinel2 unto the main,
Environed round with trees and many an arbour;
Wherein melodious birds did nightly harbour,
And on a bough within the quickening spring
Would be a-teaching of their young to sing,
Whose pleasing notes the tired swain have made
To steal a nap at noontide in the shade.
Nature herself did there in triumph ride,
And made that place the ground of all her pride,
Whose various showers deceived the rasher eye
In taking them for curious tapestry.
A silver spring forth of a rock did fall,
That in a drought did serve to water all;
Upon the edges of a grassy bank,
A tuft of trees grew circling in a rank,
As if they seemed their sports to gaze upon,
Or stood as guard against the wind and sun.
So fair, so fresh, so green, so sweet a ground
The piercing eyes of heaven yet never found.
2 Watch-post.
Here 'gan the reed and merry bagpipe play,
Shrill as a thrush upon a morn of May,
A rural music for an heavenly train;
And every shepherdess danced with her swain.
By this had Chanticleer, the village cock,
Bidden the good-wife for her maids to knock ;
And the swart ploughman for his breakfast staid,
That he might till those lands were fallow laid;
The hills and valleys here and there resound
With re-echoes of the deep-mouthed hound;
Each shepherd's daughter with her cleanly pail
Was come a-field to milk the morning's meal.
And, ere the sun had climbed the eastern hills
To gild the muttering burns1 and pretty rills,
Before the labouring bee had left the hive,
And nimble fishes which in rivers dive
Began to leap and catch the drownèd fly,
I rose from rest.
Then, as a nimble squirrel from the wood,
Ranging the hedges for his filbert food,
Sits partly on a bough, his brown nuts cracking,
And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking,
Till, with their crooks and bags, a sort3 of boys,
To share with him, come with so great a noise
That he is forced to leave a nut nigh broke
And for his life leap to a neighbour oak,
Thence to a beech, thence to a row of ashes;
Whilst through the quagmire and red water-plashes
The boys run dabbling thorough thick and thin :
One tears his hose, another breaks his shin;
This, torn and tattered, hath with much ado
Got by the briars, and that hath lost his shoe;
This drops his band, that headlong falls for haste;
Another cries behind for being last :
With sticks, and stones, and many a sounding hollow,
The little fool, with no small sport, they follow;
Whilst he, from tree to tree, from spray to spray,
Gets to the wood and hides him in his dray.
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