| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | To His Inconstant Mistress | | By Thomas Carew (1595?–1639?) |
| | | WHEN 1 thou, poor Excommunicate | |
| From all the joys of Love, shalt see | |
| The full reward and glorious fate | |
| Which my strong faith shall purchase me, | |
| Then curse thine own inconstancy! | 5 |
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| A fairer hand than thine shall cure | |
| That heart which thy false oaths did wound; | |
| And to my soul a soul more pure | |
| Than thine shall by Love’s hand be bound, | |
| And both with equal glory crowned. | 10 |
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| Then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain | |
| To Love, as I did once to thee; | |
| When all thy tears shall be in vain | |
| As mine were then: for thou shalt be | |
| Damn’d for thy false apostasy. | 15 |
| | | Note 1. The first and third stanzas of this poem were set to music by Henry Lawes in Ayres and Dialogues, 1653. [back] | | |
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