All Poems
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The Knife
© Keith Douglas
Can I explain this to you? Your eyes
are entrances the mouths of caves
I issue from wonderful interiors
upon a blessed sea and a fine day,
from inside these caves I look and dream.
Cairo Jag
© Keith Douglas
Shall I get drunk or cut myself a piece of cake,
a pasty Syrian with a few words of English
or the Turk who says she is a princess--she dances
apparently by levitation? Or Marcelle, Parisienne
Villanelle Of Spring Bells
© Keith Douglas
Bells in the town alight with spring
converse, with a concordance of new airs
make clear the fresh and ancient sound they sing.
How To Kill
© Keith Douglas
Under the parabola of a ball,
a child turning into a man,
I looked into the air too long.
The ball fell in my hand, it sang
in the closed fist: Open Open
Behold a gift designed to kill.
Vergissmeinnicht
© Keith Douglas
Three weeks gone and the combatants gone
returning over the nightmare ground
we found the place again, and found
the soldier sprawling in the sun.
Epitaph for Maria Wentworth
© Thomas Carew
And here the precious dust is laid;
Whose purely-temper'd clay was made
So fine that it the guest betray'd.
Song. Good Counsel to a Young Maid
© Thomas Carew
GAZE not on thy beauty's pride,
Tender maid, in the false tide
That from lovers' eyes doth slide.
Let thy faithful crystal show
How thy colours come and go :
Beauty takes a foil from woe.
To A. L. Persuasions to Love.
© Thomas Carew
THINK not, 'cause men flattering say
You're fresh as April, sweet as May,
Bright as is the morning star,
That you are so ; or, though you are,
Epitaph On the Lady Mary Villiers
© Thomas Carew
THE Lady Mary Villiers lies
Under this stone; with weeping eyes
The parents that first gave her birth,
And their sad friends, laid her in earth.
To Ben Jonson upon Occasion of his Ode of Defiance Annexed t
© Thomas Carew
'Tis true, dear Ben, thy just chastising hand
Hath fix'd upon the sotted age a brand
To their swoll'n pride and empty scribbling due;
It can nor judge, nor write, and yet 'tis true
Song
© Thomas Carew
ASK me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauty's orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.
Another
© Thomas Carew
THIS little vault, this narrow room,
Of Love and Beauty is the tomb;
The dawning beam, that 'gan to clear
Our clouded sky, lies darken'd here,
Persuasions to Joy, a Song
© Thomas Carew
IF the quick spirits in your eye
Now languish and anon must die;
If every sweet and every grace
Must fly from that forsaken face;
Then, Celia, let us reap our joys
Ere Time such goodly fruit destroys.
Song: Eternity of Love Protested
© Thomas Carew
How ill doth he deserve a lover's name,
Whose pale weak flame
Cannot retain
His heat, in spite of absence or disdain;
Know, Celia, Since Thou Art So Proud
© Thomas Carew
Know, Celia, since thou art so proud,
'Twas I that gave thee thy renown.
Thou hadst in the forgotten crowd
Of common beauties lived unknown
Had not my verse extolled thy name,
And with it imped the wings of Fame.
Ingrateful Beauty Threatened
© Thomas Carew
Know Celia, since thou art so proud,
'Twas I that gave thee thy renown;
Thou hadst, in the forgotten crowd
Of common beauties, liv'd unknown,
Had not my verse exhal'd thy name,
And with it imp'd the wings of fame.
Celia Beeding, To the Surgeon
© Thomas Carew
Fond man, that canst believe her blood
Will from those purple channels flow;
Or that the pure untainted flood
Can any foul distemper know;
Or that thy weak steel can incise
The crystal case wherein it lies:
My Mistress Commanding Me to Return Her Letters.
© Thomas Carew
SO grieves th' adventurous merchant, when he throws
All the long toil'd-for treasure his ship stows
Into the angry main, to save from wrack
Himself and men, as I grieve to give back
Song. Murdering Beauty
© Thomas Carew
I'LL gaze no more on her bewitching face,
Since ruin harbours there in every place ;
For my enchanted soul alike she drowns
With calms and tempests of her smiles and frowns.
Song. Mediocrity in love rejected.
© Thomas Carew
GIVE me more love or more disdain ;
The torrid or the frozen zone
Bring equal ease unto my pain,
The temperate affords me none :
Either extreme of love or hate,
Is sweeter than a calm estate.
