To my Inconstant Mistress

By Thomas Carew 1595–1640 Thomas Carew

When 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.

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 crown'd.

Then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain

To Love, as I did once to thee;

When all thy tears shall be as vain

As mine were then, for thou shalt be

Damn'd for thy false apostasy.

Biography

Thomas Carew was the poetic arbiter elegantiae of the court of Charles I. He gave one last witty spin to the tradition of Petrarchan lyric, polishing and resetting the traditional conceits of love poetry for an increasingly sophisticated and aristocratic audience. Carew penned the most notorious erotic poem of the seventeenth century, "A Rapture," as well as what is generally regarded as the most accomplished of the Caroline . . .

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