By 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.
Poet Bio
The son of a prominent British couple, Thomas Carew grew up in Kent, and was educated at Oxford University. As a young man he got into trouble for not taking school or work very seriously. But Carew found his passion in courtly life, and slowly built a reputation for his love poems, and later for his poems celebrating royal and literary figures. Carew officially joined Charles I’s royal court in 1630.
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