Sir John Carr

Sir John Carr

Poems

Summary

Sir John Carr’s Poems is a collection of lyrical verses that weave natural imagery, emotional depth, and reflections on virtue, published in the 18th century. The work explores themes of love, loss, and the fleeting beauty of nature, as seen in references to "flow’rs," "shade," and "autumnal leaves," while addressing figures like "Queen Bess" and "Florio.

" Carr’s verses often merge pastoral scenes with personal sentiment, as in his elegies for "William" or his reflections on "the Muse." The poems convey human emotions—sighs, tears, and longing—through vivid metaphors, ultimately portraying nature and moral grace as interconnected forces that shape both the individual and the collective human experience.

Quotes from Poems (Sir John Carr)

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Where manly honour, taste refin’d,
With ev’ry virtue, are combin’d;
If you can quit a heart so true,
Which has so often throbb’d for you,
I’ll pity, tho’ I can’t reprove;
And did I, such is Florio’s love,
Eager he’d fly to take thy part,
E’en in a war against his heart.
THE MUSHROOM. Awake, my Muse! awake each slumb’ring string,
And (mighty subject!) of a Mushroom sing,
Fair to the eye, and pleasant to the taste;
Charm’d by the note, a pigmy group, in haste,
Lay down their grainy loads, as slow they move
Thro’ lanes of reed and grass, to them a grove! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Tho’ no funereal grandeur swell my song,
Nor genius, eagle-plum’d, the strain prolong,—
Tho’ Grief and Nature here alone combine
To weep, my William! o’er a fate like thine,—
Yet thy fond pray’r, still ling’ring on my ear,
Shall force its way thro’ many a gushing tear:
The Muse, that saw thy op’ning beauties spread,
That lov’d thee living, shall lament thee dead!
Ye graceful Virtues! while the note I breathe,
Of sweetest flow’rs entwine a fun’ral wreath,—
Of virgin flow’rs, and place them round his tomb,
To bud, like him, and perish in their bloom! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Tho’ there the mountain-nymph of song has pour’d
Her loftiest strain, to bless the hero’s sword;
Still, lovely wand’rer, with a jealous eye,
O’er Scotia’s hills we see thy fancy fly;
For here the warrior oft has rais’d his sword,
The patriot too his noble blood has pour’d;
Here too the sweet Recorder of the brave
Has sat and sung upon her hero’s grave.
Then cease, romantic maid! ah, cease to rove;
The very wood-dove loves its native grove:
Oh! then, let Nature bid thy guileless heart
Here shed its love, and all its warmth impart ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ And drink the drops that laid it low.
Oh! thus, when sorrow wrings the heart,
A sigh may rise, a tear may start;
Pity shall soon the face impress
With all its looks of happiness.
VERSES ON AN AUTUMNAL LEAF. Think not, thou pride of Summer’s softest strain!
Sweet dress of Nature, in her virgin bloom!
That thou hast flutter’d to the breeze in vain,
Or unlamented found thy native tomb.
The Muse, who sought thee in the whisp’ring shade,
When scarce one roving breeze was on the wing,
With tones of genuine grief beholds thee fade,
And asks thy quick return in earliest Spring. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Too young art thou for strains of love;
’Tis not thy passion I would move;
Instead of lover’s strains, I send
The cordial wishes of a friend.
Nobly has Nature done her duty,
To give thee of thy mother’s beauty
So large a share—oh! then be thine
The mental charms that in her shine!
And may thy father’s taste refin’d
Still add new graces to thy mind;
And may’st thou to each charm impart
The gen’rous frankness of his heart.
Then, my sweet Emma! thou shall move
In many a heart more genuine love
Than ever warm’d poetic line,
Or sigh’d in any Valentine. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Thy wit and humour claim the passing sigh:
When, thro’ the hour, with unresisted skill,
I’ve seen thee mould each feature to thy will,—
When friends drew round thee with attentive ear,
Pleas’d with the raill’ry which they could not fear.
Oh! how I’ve heard thee, with concealing art,
Join in the song, tho’ sorrow rent thy heart;
How have I seen thee too, with venial guile,
O’er many an anguish force the faithless smile,—
Seen suffering Nature check each sigh, each fear,
To rob maternal fondness of a tear! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ The grove, green field, and op’ning flow’r,
Are lost to thee!
Dark child of Nature, as thou art!
Yet thy poor bosom heaves no sigh;
E’en now thy dimpling cheeks impart
Their knowledge of some pleasure nigh:—
’Tis good for thee!
Thou seem’st to say “I’ve sunshine too;
’Tis beaming in a spotless breast;
No shade of guilt obstructs the view,
And there are many not so blest,
Who day’s blush see.
“Dear are those eyes, by mine ne’er seen,
Which I protect from many a tear;
Kind stranger! ’tis on yonder green
A mother’s aged form I rear:
Oh! buy of me!” ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Ungrac’d by any thought of thine,
Should but that gentle name appear,
Fond cause of ev’ry joy and fear;
I love, tho’ rude, I love it more,
Than all thy piles of letter’d lore:
Frown not if ev’ry airy word,
Which Beauty breathes, or Love has heard,
More rich, more eloquently, flow,
To Mem’ry gives a warmer glow,
Than all by thee so much approv’d,
The wit of age on age improv’d.
Go, then! and, since it is denied
That thou shalt be my radiant guide!
Leave me to sigh, to weep, to prove
How little Learning is to Love. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Here the laugh titter’d, there the lute of Love
Fill’d with its melody the moon-light grove:
All, all are fled!—Time ruthless stalks around,
And bends the crumbling ruin to the ground:
Time, Ladies, too (I know you do not like him,
And, if a fan could end him, you would strike him) ,
Will with as little gallantry devour
From your fair faces their bewitching pow’r;
Then, like these ruins, beauteous in decay,
Still shall you charm, and men shall still obey:
Then, with remembrance soft, and tender smile,
Perchance you’ll think upon this mossy pile ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ TO TAKE THE COMMAND OF A SQUADRON. Oh! why does sorrow shade thy face,
Where mind and beauty vie with grace?
Say, dost thou for thy hero weep,
Who gallantly, upon the deep,
Is gone to tell the madd’ning foe,
Tho’ vict’ry laid our Nelson low,
We still have chiefs as greatly brave,
Proudly triumphant on the wave?
Dear to thy Country shalt thou be,
Fair mourner! and her sympathy
Is thine; for, in the war’s alarms,
Thou gav’st thine hero from thine arms;
And only ask’d to sigh alone,
To look to heav’n, and weep him gone. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Sad, near thy silent strings, I sit and sigh.
Cold is that band which Music form’d her own,
When ev’ry chord resign’d its sweetest tone.
Ah! long, fair source of rapture, shall thou rest,
Silent and sad, neglected and unprest,
’Till years, lov’d shade! superior pow’rs resign,
Or raise one note more eloquent than thine.
Tho’ with’ring Sickness mark’d thee in the womb,
And form’d thy cradle but to form thy tomb,
Yet, like a flow’r, she bade thee reach thy prime,
The fairer victim for the stroke of Time. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Thus, in the bosom of some winding grove,
Where oft the pensive melodist retires,
From his sweet instrument, the note of love,
Charms the rapt ear, but, as it charms, expires.
Farewell, pure spirit! o’er thine early grave
Oblivion ne’er shall spread her freezing shade;
Nature shall bid her richest foliage wave
Where her reposing fav’rite child is laid.
There widow’d fondness oft, when summers bloom.
Shall with thy infant pledge of love repair;
Oft shall they kneel beside thy mossy tomb,
And tears shall dew the flow’rs that blossom there. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ To sooth the sorrows of her friend.
Associate Genius bids them flow
With sounds that give a charm to woe;
We weep as tho’ it were our own,
As if our hearts were play’d upon.
SONNET. The leaves are flutter’d by no tell-tale gales,
Clear melts the azure in the rosy west,
Scarce heard, the river winds along the vales,
And Eve has lull’d the vocal grove to rest.
To yon thick elms, my Delia! let us rove,
As slow the glories of the day retire;
There to thy lute breathe dulcet notes of love,
While thro’ the vale they linger and expire. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ And Nature seem’d to start from out the wall.
Hail, beauteous art! oh! that in equal lay
Could but my Muse thy various pow’rs convey!
’Tis thine with silent eloquence to shew
Passion’s strong image, Beauty’s rapt’rous glow,
To soothe the parted lover’s anxious care,
Who owns thee fairest of thy sisters fair;
When waves divide him, still thro’ thee to trace
The dear resemblance of that cherish’d face,
Which he so oft with trembling lips has prest,
So often gaz’d upon, so often blest!
Thine too it is to seek the verdant plains
Where Peace resides, where Rustic Beauty reigns ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Leads me to think of time, and heave a sigh;
But when on thee and on thy charms I gaze,
Time unremember’d moves, or seems to die.
LINES Upon a Diamond Cross,
WORN ON HER BOSOM BY MISS C.M. Well on that neck, sweet Kitty! may you wear
The sparkling cross, with hopes to soften Heaven;
For trust me, tho’ so very young and fair,
Thou hast some little sins to be forgiven:—
For all the hopes which wit and grace can spread,
For all the sighs which countless charms can move,
Fall, lovely Kitty! on thy youthful head;
Yet fall they gently—for the crime is love. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ She bade me never love again.
Then did my heart at once reply,
“If you are false, who can be true?
There’s nothing here deserves a sigh,
Take this, the last, ’tis heav’d for you.”
Ah! fickle fair! amid the scene
That giddy pleasure may prepare,
A pensive thought shall intervene,
And touch your wand’ring heart with care.
And when, alone, at eve you rove,
Where arm in arm we oft have mov’d,
Each Zephyr in the well-known grove
Shall whisper that we once have lov’d.
LINES WRITTEN IN A HERMITAGE,
AT DRONNINGAARD, NEAR COPENHAGEN. Delicious gloom! asylum of repose! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ And knelt a mourner at her tomb.
When the night-breeze shall softly blow,
When the bright moon upon the flood
Shall spread her beams (a silv’ry show) ,
And dark be many a waving wood,—
When, dimly [4] seen, in robes of white,
A mournful train along the grove
Shall bear the lamp of sacred light,
To deck the turf of those they love,—
Then shall the wood-dove quit its bow’r,
And seek the spot were she is laid;
Its wild and mournful notes shall pour
A requiem to her hallow’d shade. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ I only can reward thee with a sigh,
And wish that joys may crown thy peaceful nest.
EPITAPH ON A FRIEND. By painful sickness long severely prest,
Here sinks, on Nature’s sacred lap of rest,
A friend, who, in a life too short, display’d
A mind in virtue bright, without one shade.
Hence with unusual grief is Fondness mov’d,
Hence more than Pity’s sighs for one belov’d;
Unshaken Honour sheds a manly tear,
And weeping Virtue stops, a mourner here. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Ne’er from that breast thou’d’st raise thine head,
But thou would’st breathe to Heav’n a pray’r
To let thee, ere thy blossom fade,
In one fond sigh exhale thee there.
LINES WRITTEN AT FREDENSBORG, The deserted Palace of the late Queen Dowager Juliana Maria [18] .
Bless’d are the steps of Virtue’s queen!
Where’er she moves fresh roses bloom;
And, when she droops, kind Nature pours
Her genuine tears in gentle show’rs,
That love to dew the willow green
That over-canopies her tomb. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Of sweetest flow’rs a fun’ral wreath entwine.
Ah! since thy tuneful song no more shall flow,
Nor here again thy op’ning virtues shine,
May those who, Lycid! lov’d thee living, know
To bear the sorrows of a loss like thine!
And, while they linger yet another hour
On life’s extended, tempest-beaten, strand,
Waiting the gale that shall convey them o’er,
To hail their Lycid in a happier land,
Oh! may religion lull each sigh to rest,
Teach them a God, in mercy rob’d, to praise,
To know that ev’ry act of his is best,
And, tho’ mysterious, still to prize his ways! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Behold thy beauteous victim!—Ah! tis thine
To rend fond hearts, and start the tend’rest tear
Where joy should long in cloudless radiance shine.
Alas! the mourning Muse in vain would paint,
Blest shade! how purely pass’d thy life away,
Or, with the meekness of a favour’d saint,
How rose thy spirit to the realms of day.
’Twas thine to fill each part that gladdens life,
Such as approving angels smile upon;—
The faultless daughter, parent, friend, and wife,—
Virtues short-lived! they set just as they shone. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Shall shield thy gen’rous virtues from the blast,
And Fancy animate again thy form.
Yes, gentle youth! to her, tho’ little known,
Save by the rich effusions of thy lyre,
Th’ admiring Muse shall breathe a mournful tone,
And sounds of grief shall o’er the floods expire.
But, far more grateful to thy pensive shade,
Parental Fondness mourns her Lycid gone,
Lycid! who to her bosom oft convey’d
The liveliest joys to tend’rest feelings known.
For her the lustre of the dawning day,
With all its charms, no longer yields delight ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Abundant charms to fix th’ admiring eye:
In furtive splendour ne’er art thou array’d,
No plunder’d country mourns thy ruthless blade,
Sees its transported treasures torn away,
To grace a fierce ambitious Tyrant’s sway.
Long in this isle, where Freedom finds repose,
Whilst, raving round her, loud the tempest blows,
Oh! long befriended, may the Arts excel,
And bless the sacred spot they love so well!
[20] “Then painting grew, and from the shades,” &c.—The shadows of plants, and indeed of every object in Nature, must, at a very early period, have furnished ideas of imitation. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ The absent lover calls thee slow,—
“Too rapid,” says the happy lover.
With bloom thy cheeks are now refin’d,
Now to thine eye the tear is given;
At once too cruel and too kind,—
A little hell, a little heaven.
Go then, thou charming myst’ry, go!—
Yes, tho’ thou often dost amuse me,
Tho’ many a joy to thee I owe,
At once I thank thee and abuse thee.
A ROUNDELAY. Wide thro’ the azure blue and bright
Serenely floats the lamp of night;
The sleeping waves forget to move,
And silent is the cedar grove;
Each breeze suspended seems to say—
“Now, Leline, for thy Roundelay!” ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ Yes, ’tis Reflection’s chosen hour; for then,
With pensive pleasure mingling o’er the scene,
Th’ erratic mind treads over life again,
And gazes on the past with eye serene.
Those stormy passions which bedimm’d the soul,
That oft have bid the joys it treasur’d fly,
Now, like th’ unruffled waves of Ocean, roll
With gentle lapse—their only sound a sigh.
The galling wrong no longer knits the brow,
Ambition feels the folly of her aim ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ When o’er thy lips we watch’d thy fault’ring breath—
When louder grief proclaim’d th’approach of death,—
Thro’ ev’ry vein an icy horror chill’d,
Colder than marble ev’ry bosom thrill’d.
Unsettled still, tho’ exercis’d to grieve,
Scarce would my mind the alter’d sight believe;
Familiar scenes a transient calm inspire,
Poor flutt’ring Fancy fann’d the vain desire,
’Till with sad proof thy wasted relics rise,
And restless Nature pours uncall’d-for sighs.
Ah! long, my William! ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ The summer night-breeze, like a sigh, was just heard,
When thus flow’d the strains of the dark-warbling bird:
“I hear a strange melody breathe thro’ the grove,
Now swelling with joy, and now melting with love;
Tho’ sweet is the sound, yet it should not invade,
Unbidden, my lonely dominion of shade.
“As long as the stars that now twinkle shall shine,
This willow’s my throne, and all nature is mine:
Perchance ’tis the breeze on your desolate lute ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ TRANSLATION. To Beauty give your heart, your sighs,
No other off’ring will she prize;
As Truth should unadorn’d appear,
Behold! the god is naked here!
Like Innocence, he has no arms
But those of sweet, of native, charms;
No wish or pow’r has he to fly,
Like thy pure spirit, Constancy! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Sir John Carr, Poems

“ So many fairy charms she made,
To grace her fav’rite Caroline?
Or was it Taste that bade thee try
How soon the richest gem must yield,
In beauty and attractive die,
To this wild blossom of the field?
Whate’er the cause, in Nature’s glow
Well does the choice thyself pourtray;
Thine innocence the blossoms show,
Thy youth the green leaves well display. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

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