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Thomas Carew (1594?-1640)
Song
Ask me no more where Jove bestowes,
When June is past, the fading rose:
For in your beauties orient deep,
These Flowers as in their causes sleep.
Ask me no more whither doe stray
The golden Atomes of the day:
For in pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to inrich your hair.
Ask me no more whither doth hast
The Nightingale, when May is past:
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters, and keeps warm her note.
Ask me no more where those starres light,
That downwards fall in dead of night:
For in your eyes they sit, and there,
Fixèd, become as in their sphere.
Ask me no more if East or West
The Phenix builds her spicy nest:
For unto you at last she flyes,
And in your fragrant bosome dies.
The above poem can be found in:
Bloom, Harold, ed. The Best Poems of the English Language. New York: Harper Perenial, 2004.
It is listed by Harmon as one of the hundred most anthologized poems of the English language:
Harmon, William, ed. The Classic Hundred Poems (Second Edition). New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
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