| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | XXIX. The Happy Dead
Epitaph on Lady Mary Villiers | | By Thomas Carew (1595?–1639?) |
| | | 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, | |
| For ever set to us: by Death | 5 |
| Sent to enflame 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. | 10 |
| 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; | 15 |
| The flames, the arrows, all lie here. | | | | |
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