It would be inaccurate to say of Thomas Otway (1652–1685) that he flourished in the Restoration period. That is, drama, his chief artistic medium, flourished in the Restoration period. Otway, who turned his hand to playwriting after a single abysmal, stage-fright-crippled turn as an actor, wrote a handful of plays that flourished. Incredibly, at least to us, his 1680 play, “The History and Fall of Caius Marius” outperformed “Romeo and Juliet” for most of the century following its debut at London’s Dorset Garden Theatre. Two other plays, “The Orphan” and “Venice Preserv’d,” remained in consistent production into the nineteenth century.

But despite these dramatic successes, Otway himself, a vicar’s son who did not please his father by following him into holy orders, failed to flourish. His muse and love interest, the actress Elizabeth Barry, happily played leading parts in his dramas, but had no intention of abandoning her lover, John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester (1647–1680). A bout of military service, undertaken to mend his broken heart and compensated with worthless scrip, only left him in poverty.

According to legend, Otway died at thirty-three by choking on a bun, bought with money a passerby had given him out of pity, on learning who he was. Whether this version of his passing is accurate or not, it illustrates the truth of a life petering out too pitiably and too soon. Like that life, today’s Poem of the Day is a brief one: three tetrameter abab quatrains, here and gone. Like its author, this speaker is a beggar. Falling under the enchantment of love, he can only entreat its object to pity him. 

The Enchantment 
by Thomas Otway

I did but look and love awhile, 
  ’Twas but for one half-hour; 
Then to resist I had no will, 
  And now I have no power. 
 
To sigh and wish is all my ease; 
  Sighs which do heat impart 
Enough to melt the coldest ice, 
  Yet cannot warm your heart. 
 
O would your pity give my heart 
  One corner of your breast, 
’Twould learn of yours the winning art, 
  And quickly steal the rest. 

___________________________________________
With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems are drawn from the deep traditions of English verse: the great work of the past and the living poets who keep those traditions alive. The goal is always to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.