Cherry-Ripe

By Thomas Campion 1567–1620 Thomas Campion

There is a garden in her face

Where roses and white lilies blow;

A heavenly paradise is that place,

Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow:

There cherries grow which none may buy

Till “Cherry-ripe” themselves do cry.

Those cherries fairly do enclose

Of orient pearl a double row,

Which when her lovely laughter shows,

They look like rose-buds filled with snow;

Yet them no peer nor prince can buy

Till “Cherry-ripe” themselves do cry.

Her eyes like angels watch them still;

Her brows like bended bows do stand,

Threat'ning with piercing frowns to kill

All that attempt with eye or hand

Those sacred cherries to come nigh,

Till “Cherry-ripe” themselves do cry.

Source: The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, edited by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch. (1900)

Biography

Thomas Campion's importance for nondramatic literature of the English Renaissance lies in the exceptional intimacy of the musical-poetic connection in his work. While other poets and musicians talked about the union of the two arts, only Campion produced complete songs wholly of his own composition, and only he wrote lyric poetry of enduring literary value whose very construction is deeply etched with the poet's care for its . . .

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