| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | If the Quick Spirits in Your Eye | | By Thomas Carew (1595?–1639?) |
| | | IF the quick spirits in your eye | |
| Now languish and anon must die; | |
| If every sweet and every grace | |
| Must fly from that forsaken face; | |
| Then, Celia, let us reap our joys | 5 |
| Ere Time such goodly fruit destroys. | |
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| Or if that golden fleece must grow | |
| For ever free from agèd snow; | |
| If those bright suns must know no shade, | |
| Nor your fresh beauties ever fade; | 10 |
| Then fear not, Celia, to bestow | |
| What, still being gathered, still must grow. | |
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| Thus either Time his sickle brings | |
| In vain, or else in vain his wings. | | | | |
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