Ingrateful Beauty Threatned

Thomas Carew

1595 to 1640

Poem Image

Know celia, (since thou art so proud,)
’Twas I that gave thee thy renown:
Thou hadst, in the forgotten crowd
Of common beauties, liv’d unknown,
Had not my verse exhal’d thy name,
And with it ympt the wings of fame.

That killing power is none of thine,
I gave it to thy voyce, and eyes:
Thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine;
Thou art my star, shin’st in my skies;
Then dart not from thy borrowed sphere
Lightning on him that fixt thee there.

Tempt me with such affrights no more,
Lest what I made, I uncreate:
Let fools thy mystique forms adore,
I'le know thee in thy mortall state;
Wise Poets that wrap’d Truth in tales,
Knew her themselves through all her vailes.