| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | XXVI. Melancholy
From ‘The Nice Valour’ | | By John Fletcher (1579–1625) |
| | | HENCE, all you vain delights, | |
| As short as are the nights | |
| Wherein you spend your folly! | |
| There ’s naught in this life sweet, | |
| If men were wise to see ’t, | 5 |
| But only melancholy— | |
| O sweetest melancholy! | |
| Welcome, folded arms and fixèd eyes, | |
| A sight that piercing mortifies, | |
| A look that ’s fasten’d to the ground, | 10 |
| A tongue chain’d up, without a sound! | |
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| Fountain-heads and pathless groves, | |
| Places which pale passion loves! | |
| Moonlight walks, when all the fowls | |
| Are warmly housed, save bats and owls! | 15 |
| A midnight bell, a parting groan— | |
| These are the sounds we feed upon; | |
| Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley; | |
| Nothing ’s so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy. | | | | |
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