from “A Rapture”

THOMAS CAREW

Censorship works. Much as I like to point out the contrary voices that have peeped out of the history of repression, we still have a radically skewed idea of centuries past because so many of their great works are kept from our eyes. Until recently, few people would know, for example, the number of women who were writing in the Middle Ages and the massive contributions they made to the culture of the West—including such breakthroughs as the first autobiography written in English (by Margery Kempe), the first Christian plays (by Hrotsvita of Gandersheim), or the first biography (of Charles V, by Christine de Pisan). Nor, thanks to other censorship agendas, do most people realize that Elizabethan drama contains as much bisexuality as Greek and Roman literature or that Victorian England was a hotbed for pornography. We imagine times past as but stepping-stones to the liberal triumph of today, but to think that ours is the most progressive period in history is to know little of the cultures that precede us. Time and again, by ignorance or purposeful exclusion, by selective canonization, bowdlerizing translations, or exclusionary syllabus creation, the history of literature, like so many other so-called histories, is bound and recast in a conservative package that fails to represent the actuality of what was.

So, given the sterility of most literature textbooks, one would not expect to find, browsing through an anthology of seventeenth-century poetry, a consummate how-to guide to lovemaking. But Thomas Carew’s “A Rapture” is just that. His detailed account of undressing, stroking, muff-diving, and out-and-out shtupping would rouge the cheeks of even the most licentious Cosmopolitan editor—and, truth be told, those of this editor too. “A Rapture” is not, I am warning you, a poem to read at your desk, unless you have a Flashdance-style cold shower chain you can pull. Score the point: poets, 1; censors, 0.

Come, then, and mounted on the wings of Love
We’ll cut the flitting air, and soar above
The monster’s head, and in the noblest seats
Of those blest shades quench and renew our heats.
There shall the Queen of Love, and Innocence,
Beauty, and Nature, banish all offence
From our close ivy-twines; there I’ll behold
Thy baréd snow and thy unbraided gold;
There my enfranchised hand on every side
Shall o’er thy naked polished ivory slide.
No curtain there, though of transparent lawn,
Shall be before thy virgin-treasure drawn;
But the rich mine, to the inquiring eye
Exposed, shall ready still for mintage lie,
And we will coin young Cupids. There a bed
Of roses and fresh myrtles shall be spread
Under the cooler shade of cypress groves;
Our pillows, of the down of Venus’ doves,
Whereupon our panting limbs we’ll gently lay,
In the faint respites of our active play;
That so our slumbers may in dreams have leisure
To tell the nimble fancy our past pleasure,
And so our souls that cannot be embraced
Shall the embraces of our bodies taste.
Meanwhile the bubbling stream shall court the shore,
Th’ enamoured chirping wood-choir shall adore
In varied tunes the deity of love;
The gentle blasts of western winds shall move
The trembling leaves, and through their close boughs breathe
Still music, whilst we rest ourselves beneath
Their dancing shade; till a soft murmur, sent
From souls entranced in amorous languishment,
Rouse us, and shoot into our veins fresh fire,
Till we in their sweet ecstasy expire.
Then, as the empty bee, that lately bore
Into the common treasure all her store,
Flies ’bout the painted field with nimble wing,
Deflow’ring the fresh virgins of the spring,
So will I rifle all the sweets that dwell
In my delicious paradise, and swell
My bag with honey, drawn forth by the power
Of fervent kisses, from each spicy flower.
I’ll seize the rosebuds in their perfumed bed,
The violet knots, like curious mazes spread
O’er all the garden, taste the ripened cherry,
The warm, firm apple, tipped with coral berry;
Then will I visit with a wand’ring kiss
The vale of lilies and the bower of bliss;
And where the beauteous region doth divide
Into two milky ways, my lips shall slide
Down those smooth alleys, wearing as I go
A tract for lovers on the printed snow;
Thence climbing o’er the swelling Apennine,
Retire into thy grove of eglantine,
Where I will all those ravished sweets distill
Through love’s alembic, and with chemic skill
From the mixed mass one sovereign balm derive,
Then bring that great elixir to thy hive.

Now in more subtle wreaths I will entwine
My sinewy thighs, my legs and arms with thine;
Thou like a sea of milk shalt lie displayed,
Whilst I the smooth, calm ocean invade
With such a tempest, as when Jove of old
Fell down on Danaë in a storm of gold;
Yet my tall pine shall in the Cyprian strait
Ride safe at anchor, and unlade her freight;
My rudder, with thy bold hand, like a tried
And skillful pilot, thou shall steer, and guide
My bark into love’s channel, where it shall
Dance, as the bounding waves do rise or fall.
Then shall thy circling arms embrace and clip
My willing body, and thy balmy lip
Bathe me in juice of kisses, whose perfume
Like a religious incense shall consume,
And send up holy vapors to those powers
That bless our loves, and crown our sportful hours,
That with such halcyon calmness fix our souls
In steadfast pace, as no affright controls.
There no rude sounds shake us with sudden starts;
No jealous ears, when we unrip our hearts,
Suck our discourse in; no observing spies
This blush, that glance traduce; no envious eyes
Watch our close meetings; nor are we betrayed
To rivals by the bribéd chambermaid.
No wedlock bonds unwreathe our twisted loves;
We seek no midnight arbor, no dark groves
To hide our kisses: there the hated name
Of husband, wife, lust, modest, chaste, or shame,
Are vain and empty words, whose very sound
Was never heard in the Elysian ground.
All things are lawful there that may delight
Nature or unrestrainéd appetite;
Like and enjoy, to will and act is one:
We only sin when Love’s rites are not done . . .

Come then, my Celia, we’ll no more forbear
To taste our joys, struck with a panic fear,
But will dispose from his imperious sway
This proud usurper, and walk free as they,
With necks unyoked; nor is it just that he
Should fetter your soft sex with chastity,
Which Nature made unapt for abstinence;
When yet this false imposter can dispense
With human justice and with sacred right,
And, maugre both their laws, command me fight
With rivals, or with emulous loves, that dare
Equal with thine their mistress’ eyes or hair.
If thou complain of wrong, and call my sword
To carve out thy revenge, upon that word
He bids me fight and kill, or else he brands
With marks of infamy my coward hands,
And yet religion bids from bloodshed fly,
And damns me for that act. Then tell my why
This goblin Honor, which the word adores,
Should make men atheists, and not women whores.