Thomas Carew
1595-1640
Thomas Carew nació entre junio 1594 y junio de 1595, probablemente en la casa de sus padres en West Wickham en Kent, Inglaterra, tercero de tres hijos.
Thomas Carew fue el elegantiae árbitro poética de la corte de Carlos I. Le dio un último giro ingenioso a la tradición de la lírica petrarquista, el pulido y el restablecimiento de las presunciones tradicionales de la poesía de amor para un público cada vez más sofisticado y aristocrático. Carew escribió el más célebre poema erótico del siglo XVII, "A Rapture".
Ingrata belleza amenazada
Ingrateful Beauty Threatened
Entiende, Celia, ya que en tí encarna el orgullo,
Fui yo el hacedor de tu renombre;
Pues vivías desconocida hasta entonces
En la olvidada corona de las bellezas comunes,
Aún no había exhalado en versos tu nombre,
Y las alas de la fama ya acariciaban tus velos.
Matar no es una de tus inclinaciones,
Urdí tu voz y esculpí tus ojos;
Tus ternuras y tus gracias son mías;
Tu eres mi estrella
Brillando en mi propio cielo;
Y ningún dardo de tu vana esfera
Caerá sobre los que a ti se sometan.
Tentarme con incertidumbres ya no podrás,
Lo que yo he creado lo puedo deshacer;
Que los tontos adoren tus místicas formas,
Yo conozco tu forma mortal;
Los sabios poetas que tejen la verdad en cuentos
También te conocieron, envuelta en los mismos velos.
La Mediocridad en el Amor Rechazado
Mediocrity in love rejected
Dadme más amor o más desprecio;
Lo helado, o el más ardiente calor,
Traen igual calma a mi dolor;
Lo templado nada me brinda;
Cualquier extremo, de odio o amor,
Es más dulce que cualquier delicia.
Dadme una tormenta, si es amor,
Al igual que Dánae en aquel baño dorado,
En placeres he de nadar; si muestra desdén,
Aquel torrente devorará todas mis esperanzas;
Y su recinto en los cielos
Será sólo uno de muchos anhelos.
Entonces corona mis alegrías, o cura mi dolor;
Dadme más amor o más desdén.
No Preguntes
Ask me no more
No preguntes dónde crea Zeus a la efímera rosa,
cuando de junio sólo queda el recuerdo;
pues en tu honda belleza oriental
descansa toda su esencia.
No preguntes dónde habitan
los dorados átomos del día;
ya que en el cielo enamorado,
para adornar tus cabellos fueron creados.
No preguntes hacia dónde huye
el ruiseñor cuando el otoño concluye,
ya que la dulzura de tu voz
derrite los inviernos y silencia los ocasos.
No preguntes dónde brillan las altas estrellas
que hacia abajo derraman su luz muerta en la noche;
ya que en tus ojos reside el mismo fulgor,
envuelto en trémulas esferas.
No preguntes dónde el esquivo Fénix
teje su ígnea morada,
ya que tu alma es su destino,
y en tu fragante pecho morirá.
Una Dama Cruel
A Cruel Mistress
Hemos leído sobre reyes y amables dioses
Que llenaron sus cálices en el arroyo;
Pero diariamente, sin decir gracias, vuelco
El flujo de mis lágrimas convertidas en río.
Un toro sacrificado puede aplacar la cólera de Jove,
Un caballo al Sol, un cordero al Dios del Amor,
Pero ella desdeña las inmaculadas ofrendas
De un corazón puro, abatido a los pies de su altar.
Vesta no me desprecia, en su urna casta
Dónde las sombrías llamas arden por siempre;
Pero sí mi Santa indiferente, en cuyo nombre
He consagrado un fuego imperecedero.
El rey asirio ha devorado a los temerarios
Que ante su imagen no osaron postrarse;
Yo, con las rodillas desgarradas adoro a mi Dama,
Sin embargo ella se consume en su propia idolatría.
De tal Diosa el tiempo no dejará registro,
Cuando el fuego derribe el templo donde fue adorada.
A Song: Ask me no more where Jove bestows
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.
Ask me no more whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For in pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.
Ask me no more whither doth haste
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 stars 'light,
That downwards fall in dead of night;
For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixed become, as in their sphere.
Ask me no more if east or west
The phoenix builds her spicy nest;
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies.
A Song: When June is past, the fading rose
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.
Ask me no more whither doth stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For in pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.
Ask me no more whither doth haste
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 stars light
That downwards fall in dead of night;
For in your eyes they sit, and there,
Fixed become as in their sphere.
Ask me no more if east or west
The phoenix builds her spicy nest;
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies.
An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of Paul's,
Dr. John Donne
Can we not force from widow'd poetry,
Now thou art dead (great Donne) one elegy
To crown thy hearse? Why yet dare we not trust,
Though with unkneaded dough-bak'd prose, thy dust,
Such as th' unscissor'd churchman from the flower
Of fading rhetoric, short-liv'd as his hour,
Dry as the sand that measures it, should lay
Upon thy ashes, on the funeral day?
Have we no voice, no tune? Didst thou dispense
Through all our language, both the words and sense?
'Tis a sad truth. The pulpit may her plain
And sober Christian precepts still retain,
Doctrines it may, and wholesome uses, frame,
Grave homilies and lectures, but the flame
Of thy brave soul (that shot such heat and light
As burnt our earth and made our darkness bright,
Committed holy rapes upon our will,
Did through the eye the melting heart distil,
And the deep knowledge of dark truths so teach
As sense might judge what fancy could not reach)
Must be desir'd forever. So the fire
That fills with spirit and heat the Delphic quire,
Which, kindled first by thy Promethean breath,
Glow'd here a while, lies quench'd now in thy death.
The Muses' garden, with pedantic weeds
O'erspread, was purg'd by thee; the lazy seeds
Of servile imitation thrown away,
And fresh invention planted; thou didst pay
The debts of our penurious bankrupt age;
Licentious thefts, that make poetic rage
A mimic fury, when our souls must be
Possess'd, or with Anacreon's ecstasy,
Or Pindar's, not their own; the subtle cheat
Of sly exchanges, and the juggling feat
Of two-edg'd words, or whatsoever wrong
By ours was done the Greek or Latin tongue,
Thou hast redeem'd, and open'd us a mine
Of rich and pregnant fancy; drawn a line
Of masculine expression, which had good
Old Orpheus seen, or all the ancient brood
Our superstitious fools admire, and hold
Their lead more precious than thy burnish'd gold,
Thou hadst been their exchequer, and no more
They each in other's dust had rak'd for ore.
Thou shalt yield no precedence, but of time,
And the blind fate of language, whose tun'd chime
More charms the outward sense; yet thou mayst claim
From so great disadvantage greater fame,
Since to the awe of thy imperious wit
Our stubborn language bends, made only fit
With her tough thick-ribb'd hoops to gird about
Thy giant fancy, which had prov'd too stout
For their soft melting phrases. As in time
They had the start, so did they cull the prime
Buds of invention many a hundred year,
And left the rifled fields, besides the fear
To touch their harvest; yet from those bare lands
Of what is purely thine, thy only hands,
(And that thy smallest work) have gleaned more
Than all those times and tongues could reap before.
But thou art gone, and thy strict laws will be
Too hard for libertines in poetry;
They will repeal the goodly exil'd train
Of gods and goddesses, which in thy just reign
Were banish'd nobler poems; now with these,
The silenc'd tales o' th' Metamorphoses
Shall stuff their lines, and swell the windy page,
Till verse, refin'd by thee, in this last age
Turn ballad rhyme, or those old idols be
Ador'd again, with new apostasy.
Oh, pardon me, that break with untun'd verse
The reverend silence that attends thy hearse,
Whose awful solemn murmurs were to thee,
More than these faint lines, a loud elegy,
That did proclaim in a dumb eloquence
The death of all the arts; whose influence,
Grown feeble, in these panting numbers lies,
Gasping short-winded accents, and so dies.
So doth the swiftly turning wheel not stand
In th' instant we withdraw the moving hand,
But some small time maintain a faint weak course,
By virtue of the first impulsive force;
And so, whilst I cast on thy funeral pile
Thy crown of bays, oh, let it crack awhile,
And spit disdain, till the devouring flashes
Suck all the moisture up, then turn to ashes.
I will not draw the envy to engross
All thy perfections, or weep all our loss;
Those are too numerous for an elegy,
And this too great to be express'd by me.
Though every pen should share a distinct part,
Yet art thou theme enough to tire all art;
Let others carve the rest, it shall suffice
I on thy tomb this epitaph incise:
Here lies a king, that rul'd as he thought fit
The universal monarchy of wit;
Here lie two flamens, and both those, the best,
Apollo's first, at last, the true God's priest.
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