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Home  »  The Book of Elizabethan Verse  »  Thomas Campion (1567–1620)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

O Crudelis Amor

Thomas Campion (1567–1620)

WHEN thou must home to shades of underground,

And there arrived, a new admirèd guest,

The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round,

White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,

To hear the stories of thy finish’d love

From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move;

Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,

Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make,

Of tourneys and great challenges of knights,

And all these triumphs for thy beauty’s sake:

When thou hast told these honours done to thee,

Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me!