by Thomas Carew (1595? - 1639?) and possibly by Robert Herrick (1591 - 1674)
The Primrose
Language: English
Ask me why I send you here This sweet Infanta of the year? Ask me why I send to you This Primrose, thus be-pearled with dew? I will whisper to your ears: The sweets of love are mix'd with tears. Ask me why [this]1 flow'r does show So yellow-green, and sickly too? Ask me why the stalk is weak And bending, yet it doth not break? I will answer: -- these discover What [doubts and fears]2 are in a lover.
View original text (without footnotes)
2 Bridge: "fainting hopes"
Researcher for this page: Ted Perry
Confirmed with The Book of Elizabethan Verse, ed, by William Stanley Braithwaite, 1907. See also The Primrose by Robert Burns, which appears to be inspired by this poem.
1 Bridge: "the"2 Bridge: "fainting hopes"
Text Authorship:
- by Thomas Carew (1595? - 1639?) [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
- possibly by Robert Herrick (1591 - 1674) [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Frank Bridge (1879 - 1941), "The Primrose", 1902 [ voice and piano ], from Two Songs [1902], no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
Set in a modified version by Fritz Bennicke Hart.
Researcher for this page: Ted Perry
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 81