T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
The Second Rapture
By Thomas Carew (1595?1639?)(From The Poems and Masque of Thomas Carew. London. 1640. Edited by Joseph Woodfall Ebsworth. London. 1893) |
NO, worldling, no; ’tis not thy gold, | |
Which thou dost use but to behold, | |
Nor fortune, honour, nor long life, | |
Children, or friends, or a good wife, | |
That makes thee happy: these things be | 5 |
But shadows of felicity. | |
Give me a wench above thirteen, | |
Already voted to the Queen | |
Of Love, and lovers; whose soft hair, | |
Fann’d with the breath of gentle air, | 10 |
O’er-spreads her shoulders like a tent, | |
And is her veil and ornament; | |
Whose tender touch will make the blood | |
Wild in the aged and the good; | |
Whose kisses, fast’ned to the mouth | 15 |
Of three-score years and longer slouth, 1 | |
Renew the age; and whose bright eye | |
Obscures those ‘lesser lights of sky; | |
Whose snowy breasts (if we may call | |
That snow, that never melts at all,) | 20 |
Makes Jove invent a new disguise, | |
In spite of Juno’s jealousies; | |
Whose every part doth re-invite | |
The old decayed appetite: | |
And in whose sweet embraces I | 25 |
May melt myself to love, and die. | |
This is true bliss, and I confess | |
There is no other happiness. |
Note 1. Sloth. [back] |