Epitaph On The Lady Mary Villiers

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.

NOTESForm: couplets1.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.