RPO -- Thomas Carew : Epitaph on the Lady Mary Villiers

Thomas Carew (1595?-by 1640)

Epitaph on the Lady Mary Villiers

1This little vault, this narrow room,

2Of Love, and Beauty, is the tomb;

3The dawning beam that gan to clear

4Our clouded sky, lies darken'd here,

5Forever set to us, by death

6Sent to inflame the world beneath.

7'Twas but a bud, yet did contain

8More sweetness than shall spring again;

9A budding star that might have grown

10Into a sun, when it had blown.

11This hopeful beauty did create

12New life in Love's declining state;

13But now his empire ends, and we

14From fire and wounding darts are free;

15His brand, his bow, let no man fear,

16The flames, the arrows, all lie here.

Notes

1] Carew wrote three epitaphs on Lady Mary, who is usually identified only as belonging to the family of the Dukes of Buckingham. It has recently been suggested that she was the daughter of the Earl and Countess of Anglesey, who died in 1630 at the age of two.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Thomas Carew, Poems (J. D. for T. Walkley, 1640). STC 4620.
First publication date: 1640
RPO poem editor: N. J. Endicott
RP edition: 3RP 1.220.
Recent editing: 4:2002/2/7

Form: Short Couplets

Other poems by Thomas Carew