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Home  »  The Book of the Sonnet  »  Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–1547)

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

III. Epitaph on His Squire, Thomas Clere

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–1547)

NORFOLK sprung thee, Lambeth holds thee dead;

Clere, of the Count of Cleremont, thou hight;

Within the womb of Ormond’s race thou bred,

And saw’st thy cousin crownéd in thy sight.

Shelton for love, Surrey for lord thou chase

(Ay me! whilst life did last, that league was tender);

Tracing whose steps thou sawest Kelsal blaze,

Landrecy burnt, and battered Boulogne render,

At Montreuil gates, hopeless of all recure,

Thine Earl, half dead, gave in thy hand his will,

Which cause did thee this pining death procure,

Ere summers four times seven thou couldst fulfil.

Ah, Clere! if love had booted, care, or cost,

Heaven had not won, nor earth so timely lost.