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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Extract from The Rapture

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Thomas Carew (1595?–1639?)

Extract from The Rapture

MEANWHILE the bubbling stream shall court the shore,

The enamoured chirping wood-choir shall adore

In varied tunes the deity of Love,

The gentle blasts of western winds shall move

The trembling leaves, and through their close boughs breathe

Still music, while we rest ourselves beneath

Their dancing shade, till a soft murmur, sent

From souls entranced in amorous languishment,

Rouse us, and shoot into our veins fresh fire,

Till we in their sweet extasy expire.

*****

Daphne hath broke her bark, and that swift foot,

Which th’ angry gods had fastened with a root

To the fixed earth, doth now unfettered run

To meet the embraces of the youthful Sun;

She hangs upon him, like his Delphic lyre,

Her kisses blow the old, and breathe new fire;

Full of her god, she sings inspirëd lays,

Sweet odes of love, such as deserve the bays

Which she herself was. Next her, Laura lies

In Petrarch’s learned arms, drying those eyes,

That did in such sweet smooth-paced numbers flow

As made the world enamoured of his woe.

These, and ten thousand beauties more, that died

Slave to the tyrant, now, enlarged, deride

His cancelled laws, and, for their time misspent,

Pay into Love’s exchequer double rent.