Thomas Carew. A Deposition from Love.

Thomas Carew

A DEPOSITION FROM LOVE.

I WAS foretold your rebel sex
Nor love nor pity knew ;
And with what scorn you use to vex
Poor hearts that humbly sue.
Yet I believed, to crown our pain,
Could we the fortress win,
The happy lover sure should gain
A paradise within :
I thought Love's plagues, like dragons, sat
Only to fright us at the gate.

But I did enter, and enjoy
What happy lovers prove ;
For I could kiss, and sport, and toy,
And taste those sweets of love,
Which, had they but a lasting state,
Or if in Celia's breast
The force of love might not abate,
Jove were too mean a guest :
But now her breach of faith far more
Afflicts, than did her scorn before.

Hard fate ! to have been once possess'd
As victor of a heart,
Achieved with labour and unrest,
And then forced to depart.
If the stout foe will not resign,
When I besiege a town,
I lose but what was never mine ;
But he that is cast down
From enjoy'd beauty, feels a woe
Only deposed kings can know.

Source:
Vincent, Arthur, ed. The Poems of Thomas Carew.
London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., nd. 22.

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