Unfading Beauty.
This beautiful little sonnet is reprinted from a small volume of "Poems, by Thomas Carew, Esq. one of the gentlemen of the privie chamber, and sewer in ordinary to his majesty (Charles I.) Lond. 1640." This elegant and almost-forgotten writer, whose poems have been deservedly revived, died in the prime of his age, 1639.
In the original follows a third stanza; which, not being of general application, nor of equal merit, I have ventured to omit.
HEE, that loves a rosie cheeke,
Or a corall lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seeke
Fuell to maintaine his fires,
As old time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.
But a smooth and stedfast mind,
Gentle thoughts, and calme desires,
Hearts with equal love combin'd,
Kindle never-dying fires:
Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheekes, or lips, or eyes.
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