Thomas Campion
English · 16th-17th century
English Renaissance poet and composer celebrated for his lute songs and lyric verse, including the ayre "There Is a Garden in Her Face".
Notable Works
- There Is a Garden in Her Face, Rose-Cheeked Laura, Now Winter Nights Enlarge, A Booke of Ayres
Appears in the Archive
Context within the Archive
There Is a Garden in Her Face
“Cherry lips, crystal skies”
A community reader sets Blank Space's "cherry lips" beside Thomas Campion's lyric "There Is a Garden in Her Face", whose refrain holds that the cherries of a woman's lips can be bought by no prince or peer "till cherry-ripe themselves do cry", lips that grant a kiss only when they choose to. Read against the "stolen kisses" of the next line, the pairing sharpens the song's play on who holds the power in the encounter. The reader notes that Taylor almost always writes "red" lips, which makes this rare "cherry" worth pausing on.