A web-based edition of early seventeenth-century political poetry from manuscript sources. It brings into the public domain over 350 poems, many of which have never before been published.
Piii21 Reader when these dumbe stones have told
Notes. This is the second of two elegies on Buckingham written by Thomas Carew and first printed in his 1640 Poems. (See also “When in the brazen leaves of fame”.) G. Hammond (51-53) provides interesting readings of both poems, while McRae (Literature, 184-85) considers this poem in the context of royalist poetry of the 1630s.
Reader when these dumbe stones have told
in borrowed speech what guest they hold
thou shalt confesse, the vaine pursuite
of humane glory yeelds noe fruite
but an untimely grave, if fate
5could constant happines create
her ministers fortune and worth
had here that miracle brought forth;
They fixt this Childe of honour, where
noe roome was left for hope, or feare
10of more or lesse, so high so great
his growth was, yet so safe his seate;
safe in his Loyall heart and ends,
safe in the Circle of his friends,
safe in his native valiant spirit,
15by favour safe, and safe by meritt;
safe by the stampe of nature which
did strength with shape and grace enrich;
safe in the cheerefull courtesies
of flowing gesture, speech and eyes,
20safe in his bounties which were more
proportion’d to his minde then store;
Yea though for vertue he becomes
involved himselfe in borrowed summes
safe in his cares, he leaves betray’d
25noe friend engaged, noe debt unpay’d;
But though the starres conspire to shower
upon one head the united power
of all their graces, if their dyre
Aspects must other breasts inspire
30with vicious thoughts, A murd’rers knife
may cutt, as here, their darlings life;
who can be happy then if nature must
to make one happy man make all men Just?
Source. BL MS Harley 6917, fol. 21r-v
Other known sources. Carew, Poems 98; Carew, Poems of Thomas Carew 58; Bodleian MS Don. b.9, fol. 33v; Rosenbach MS 1083/17, fol. 65v
Piii21
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