Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FOUR SONGS BY WAY OF CHORUS TO A PLAY: 3. SEPARATION OF LOVERS, by THOMAS CAREW


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FOUR SONGS BY WAY OF CHORUS TO A PLAY: 3. SEPARATION OF LOVERS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Stop the chafed boar, or play
Last Line: Love of a consumption dies.
Subject(s): Absence; Separation; Isolation


STOP the chafed boar, or play
With the lion's paw, yet fear
From the lover's side to tear
Th' idol of his soul away.

Though love enter by the sight
To the heart, it doth not fly
From the mind, when from the eye
The fair objects take their flight.

But since want provokes desire,
When we lose what we before
Have enjoy'd, as we want more,
So is love more set on fire.

Love doth with an hungry eye
Glut on beauty; and you may
Safer snatch the tiger's prey,
Than his vital food deny.

Yet though absence for a space
Sharpen the keen appetite,
Long continuance doth quite
All love's characters efface:

For the sense not fed denies
Nourishment unto the mind,
Which with expectation pin'd,
Love of a consumption dies.





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