The Spring - Thomas Carew
Message: about unrequited love in spring, the poet mount that no matter the season, his beloved does not love him.
Context: Carew = 1595-1640 (from the time of Charles I of England), he was important in Charles’s court as he was seen as a judge of good taste. He associated himself with the metaphysical school. Did have a real love whom the poem could be based on. Writing during the time of courtly love.
Written in the built up to the English civil war - he was a strong supporter of the king.
Form, meter and rhyme:
24 line poem written in block form (naturally falls into 4 line stanzas)
Metaphysical lyrical poem
Iambic pentameter, upbeat - going into spring
Heroic couplets- this is ironic as it gives the poem a perfect facade, but really his love life is anything but perfect
Rhyme subtly hints at speaker’s isolation as each one has a ‘partner’ and he doesn’t
Present tense
The poem can be split in half thematically: lines 1-12 beauty of spring, lines 13-24 comparative coldness of speaker’s lover
The poem isn’t written in sonnet form because it doesn’t portray true love, but the rhyming couplets give the illusion of pure and wholesome love
The woman: the woman here is the recipient of the speakers affections. She is representative of winter in the poem in the way that she appears decorative and graceful outwardly but really she is cold and bitter on the inside. It seems that she still acts icily to him in the spring when the rest of the world is showing him warmth. However, could this description be out of anger of her rejection?
Language: in the first few lines of the poem, there are plenty of references to food candies the grass/ icy cream/ makes it tender perhaps showing his carnal attraction to his beloved, but doing it subconsciously - a hint of what’s to come. This is intensified by the crisp alliteration Candies/ Casts / Cream / Crystal which adds to the feeling of a sharp fragile world covered in glittering ice and snow.
These lines are also packed with intense and beautiful imagery - much of which is Mother Nature being personified ‘her Snow-White robes’’makes It tender’ ‘youthful spring’, this depiction of angel-like beauty could be a reflection of how the poet pictures the woman, but it also demonstrates the beauty of Mother Nature. The possessive pronoun of her shows the theme of strong, dominant, independent women which runs throughout the poem.
The enjambment that constantly occurs throughout demonstrates the flowing of the seasons from winter to spring and building up the momentum of the poem as the winter thaws. The second ‘stanza’ includes sweet, softer and more emotional language to describe the thawing of winter ‘benumbed’ ‘tender’ ‘drowsy’ ‘humble’ - this will contrast with the icy lack of pity the beloved later displays.
The sun and warm weather is described as having god-like qualities ‘warm sun….sacred birth/to the dead swallow’ - this acts as a device to emphasize the unthaw-able coldness of the woman later on. The third stanza is also filled with an overwhelming sense of joy ‘choir of chirping minstrels’ ‘ triumph to the world’ ‘rich array’ - which again acts to contrast the later description of the woman, here everything seems to be in sync and harmony.
In the 4th stanza there is a Volta, where the woman is completely at odds with the beauty described around her - highlighted by the liquid l’s ‘love doth lower’ which also demonstrate her complete disinterest in the speaker. The language now has also shifted to include some unappetizing imagery further isolating and separating her from the joy and beauty of her surroundings ‘heart congeal’d’ ‘pity cold’ ‘scalding’. The use of extremes provides a further contrast to the soft and loving language used previously. The huffing ‘h’ sounds of ‘hold her heart’ convey the speakers expiration at her apparent complete and utter disinterest and lack of interest in him (you could almost take a feminist reading here - the unflattering and angry description because he wants something he cannot have).
The speakers allusion to Amyntas and Chloris demonstrates the hoplessness of the speakers situation as even A could woo C, the speaker can’t even do that.
The final line is very powerful ‘June in her eyes, in her heart January.’ - this may act as a warning of beauty, and how good looks can hide an icy soul. The juxtaposition between June and January represents the odds him and this woman are at and between what woman sees and what is in her own heart. The abrupt ending of the poem shows how hurt he is by her coldness and the anger and resentment he holds for this woman.
The Poem:
Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;
But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo, and the humble-bee.
Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world the youthful Spring.
The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array
Welcome the coming of the long'd-for May.
Now all things smile, only my love doth lour;
Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power
To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold
Her heart congeal'd, and makes her pity cold.
The ox, which lately did for shelter fly
Into the stall, doth now securely lie
In open fields; and love no more is made
By the fireside, but in the cooler shade
Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep
Under a sycamore, and all things keep
Time with the season; only she doth carry
June in her eyes, in her heart January.