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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  Song: “Ask me no more where Jove bestows”

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

I. Admiration

Song: “Ask me no more where Jove bestows”

Thomas Carew (1595?–1639?)

ASK me no more where Jove bestows,

When June is past, the fading rose;

For in your beauty’s orient deep,

These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.

Ask me no more whither do stray

The golden atoms of the day;

For in pure love heaven did prepare

Those powders to enrich your hair.

Ask me no more whither doth haste

The nightingale when May is past;

For in your sweet dividing throat,

She winters and keeps warm her note.

Ask me no more where those stars light

That downward fall in dead of night;

For in your eyes they sit, and there

Fixèd become as in their sphere.

Ask me no more if east or west

The Phœnix builds her spicy nest;

For unto you at last she flies,

And in your fragrant bosom dies.