SOURCE: Ing, Catherine. “The Lyrics of Thomas Campion.” In Elizabethan Lyrics: A Study in the Development of English Metres and Their Relation to Poetic Effect, pp. 151-77. London: Chatto & Windus, 1968.

In the essay that follows, Ing examines six poems of Campion's in terms of his poetic theories. Ing also looks at the importance of the accompanying music to Campion's poems in determining their form and content.

It will be illuminating to take six, very varied, poems by Campion, examine each in the light of his own theories, and then consider whether there are in them elements of versification not mentioned in his theories.

1 “rose-cheekt lawra”

(from the Obseruations in the Art of English Poesie, 1602)

          Rose-cheekt Lawra, come Sing thou smoothly with thy beawties Silent musick, either other                                                             Sweetely gracing. 

          Lovely formes do flowe From concent devinely framed; Heav'n is musick, and thy beawties                                                             Birth is heavenly. 

          These dull...