Campion, Thomas: Author of Latin Poetry

Thomas Campion:

(15657-1620)

English poet, composer and musician Thomas Campion was born in 1567 in London. He was amazingly versatile English even by poet Elizabethan and musician standards. He was the second child of john and Lucy Campion. His father died when he was 10 years old, though his mother married again but she too passed away soon and left him under the guardianship of his stepfather Augustine Steward. When he was 14, his stepfather sent him and his sister to Cambridge. In1584, he left Cambridge and studied law but was later qualified and practiced as a doctor in London. However, he achieved fame not as a scholar, lawyer or a doctor but as a poet and musician. This was an age when English poetry and music reached their supreme heights.

His poems  started gaining publicity around 1591 with five un-ascribed poems which contained 'Astrophel and Stella' by Sir Philip Sydney. His Second work was published  was in Latin and called 'Thomae Campini Poemata' which contained In 1595 he published a collection of epigrams named 'Poemeta' written in Latin his finest but incomplete poem 'Ad Thamesin'. language. Campion wrote those lyrics which he set to his own music. Many of them were contained in his first "Book of airs". Four other books followed at intervals. In 1602 Campion brought out his 'Observations in the Art of English poetry' in which he advocated rhymeless verse and a return to classical quantitative meters. It is interesting that Campion argued in this work that English poetry should be written in accordance with the rules of Latin poetry. It was a remarkable opinion to come from a poet who used the normal forms of contemporary verse with wonderful craftsmanship and delicacy. 

Thomas Campion was the best of the song writers of his time. The marriage of his words with his music was always a happy one. Among the famous of his poems are 'Cherry ripe', 'When to her lute Corinna sings', 'There is a garden in her face', 'Follow your Saint', and 'The man of life upright' Some of his poems showed a deep religious sense, notably 'Never weather beaten sail'.

Campion did not often put into practice his own theories about verse but also wrote in the common way of writing. 'Rose Laura, come' was one of his such poems. In 1620 he died suddenly at the age of 53, many believe it was the plague that took him which was affecting London at that time. The day he died he was buried at St Dunstan-in-the-west church.

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