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PotW #120
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Mediocrity in Love Rejected
- Thomas Carew (1598? - 1639?)

    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.

    Give me a storm; if it be love,
        Like Danae in that golden shower,
    I swim in pleasure; if it prove
        Disdain, that torrent will devour
    My vulture hopes; and he's possessed
    Of heaven that's but from hell released.
        Then crown my joys, or cure my pain;
        Give me more love, or more disdain.

 


The above poem can be found for example in:
  • Ferguson, Margaret, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy, eds. The Norton Anthology of Poetry (Fourth Edition). New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996.
  • Bryant, William Cullen, ed. A New Library of Poetry and Song (Utopian Edition). Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1927. (where it is titled using the first line)