Thomas Carew was the poetic arbiter elegantiae of the court of Charles I. He gave one last witty spin to the tradition of Petrarchan lyric, polishing and resetting the traditional conceits of love poetry for an increasingly sophisticated and aristocratic audience. Carew penned the most notorious erotic poem of the seventeenth century, "A Rapture," as well as what is generally regarded as the most accomplished of the Caroline masques, Coelum Britannicum (1634). His two contributions to the minor genre of the country-house poem, "To Saxham" and "To my friend G. N. from Wrest," are still frequently anthologized. In the final decade of his life Carew largely eschewed lyric for occasional and commendatory poems. His verses to Ben Jonson on the failure of The New Inn (performed 1629; published 1631) and his elegy (1633) on the death of John Donne are the most astute contemporary assessments of the two men's poetic legacies. Carew...