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

Thomas Carew (1595?–1639?)

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, sate,

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, if they had 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 possessed

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 enjoyed beauty, feels a woe

Only deposëd kings can know.