Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Now Winter Nights Enlarge by Thomas Campion

imageThomas Campion or Campian, 1567-1620, English poet, composer, and lutenist, a physician by profession. Campion wrote lyric poems that he and other composers set to music. His graceful, simple lute songs were published in five Books of Airs (1601-1617). He wrote a treatise on English poetry, condemning the use of rhyme, but he used rhyme freely in his own poems. His treatise A New Way of Making Fowre Parts in Counterpoint (1613) has often been republished.

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Now Winter Nights Enlarge

by Thomas Campion (1617)ctwkpic09

Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours,
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze,
And cups o’erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love,
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep’s leaden spells remove.

ctwkpic11
This time doth well dispense
With lovers’ long discourse;
Much speech hath some defence,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lend me your intellect! Where do you find such wonderful stuff?! Wow.

And the pictures just make it better!
Thanks!
Peace <3
Jay

Joe said...

Jay, as much as I would like to say that I am just a freaking genius, I have to admit that most of these poems come from http://poetry.about.com/ which is a wonderful collection of poems divided into just about any subject you can think of. I am glad that you enjoy them. I like to add the pictures because photographers can be can be just as poetic with images as poets can be with words.