A practicing physician and musician throughout his life, Thomas Campion wrote poetry, songs, masques, and a treatise on music and poetry. His lyrics possess rare charm and freshness, as well as a melodiousness and metrical variety that reflect their musical origin.
In his introduction to Campion's collected works, Walter R. Davis wrote, "Campion's pursuit of the movements of sound is recorded in that strange but subtle treatise, Observations in the Art of English Poesie (1602), and its fruits are preserved in his songbooks. He is a poet-perhaps the poet-of the auditory rather than the visual imagination. He offers us experiences that strike the ear."
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