Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SPARK, by THOMAS CAREW


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SPARK, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: My first love, whom all beauties did adorn
Last Line: Many less faces in her place are born.
Subject(s): Love – Beginnings; Infidelity; Guilt


MY first love, whom all beauties did adorn,
Firing my heart suppress'd it with her scorn;
Since like to tinder in my breast it lies,
By every sparkle made a sacrifice.
Each wanton eye now kindles my desire,
And that is free to all which was entire:
Desiring more, by the desire I lost,
As those that in consumptions hunger most,
And now my wand'ring thoughts are not confin'd
Unto one woman but to womankind;
This for her shape I love, that for her face,
This for her gesture or some other grace,
And, where I none of these do use to find,
I choose her by the kernel not the rind;
And so I hope, since my first hopes are gone,
To find in many what I lost in one,
And, like to merchants after some great loss,
Trade by retail that cannot now in gross.
The fault is hers that made me go astray,
He needs must wander that has lost his way.
Guiltless I am, she did this change provoke
And made that charcoal which to her was oak.
And, as a looking-glass from the aspect,
Whilst it is whole, doth but one face reflect,
But, being crack'd or broken, there are shown
Many half-faces, which at first were one,
So love unto my heart did first prefer
Her image, and there planted none but her,
But since 'twas broke and martyr'd by her scorn
Many less faces in her place are born.





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