Epitaph on the Lady Mary Villiers

By Thomas Carew 1595–1640 Thomas Carew

This little vault, this narrow room,

Of Love, and Beauty, is the tomb;

The dawning beam that gan to clear

Our clouded sky, lies darken'd here,

Forever set to us, by death

Sent to inflame the world beneath.

'Twas but a bud, yet did contain

More sweetness than shall spring again;

A budding star that might have grown

Into a sun, when it had blown.

This hopeful beauty did create

New life in Love's declining state;

But now his empire ends, and we

From fire and wounding darts are free;

His brand, his bow, let no man fear,

The flames, the arrows, all lie here.

Biography

Thomas Carew was the poetic arbiter elegantiae of the court of Charles I. He gave one last witty spin to the tradition of Petrarchan lyric, polishing and resetting the traditional conceits of love poetry for an increasingly sophisticated and aristocratic audience. Carew penned the most notorious erotic poem of the seventeenth century, "A Rapture," as well as what is generally regarded as the most accomplished of the Caroline . . .

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