The speaker (Aemilia Lanyer)
The unnamed speaker looks back on her days at Cooke-ham and grieves the decline of the estate upon the departure of its residents. Autobiographical evidence shows that this speaker is probably the poet herself, who received the patronage of Countess Margaret Clifford and resided in her Cooke-ham estate sometime in the early 1600s.
Margaret Clifford
Margaret Clifford, Countess of Cumberland (1560–1616) was the temporary owner of the Cooke-ham estate during the speaker’s (Lanyer’s) residence. In this poem, she is described as the “great lady, mistress of that place” (Line 11), a devout Christian, and a matriarch whose presence is welcomed by the flora and fauna at Cooke-ham, and whose absence (due to her husband’s death and her subsequent relocation in 1605) causes their deterioration.
Anne Clifford
Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery (1590–1676) was the daughter of Margaret Clifford. The poem refers to her as “Dorset” (Line 119) after the title of her husband (Richard Sackville, third Earl of Dorset) whom she married in 1609. According to a flashback in the second half of the poem, it seems that young Anne often joined her mother and Lanyer in their reading activities (“With noble Dorset, then a virgin fair, / Where many a learned book was read and scanned,” Lines 161–162). She is described to have “well framèd mind” (Line 97).
