| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | XXVI. Melancholy
Astophel | | By Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) |
| | [Upon the Death of Sir Philip Sidney]
SHEPHERDS that wont on pipes of oaten reed, | |
| Oft times to plaine your loues concealèd smart; | |
| And with your piteous layes haue learnd to breed | |
| Compassion in a countrey lasses hart. | |
| Hearken ye gentle shepheards to my song, | 5 |
| And place my dolefull plaint your plaints emong. | |
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| To you alone I sing this mournfull verse, | |
| The mournfulst verse that euer man heard tell: | |
| To you whose softened hearts it may empierse, | |
| With dolours dart for death of Astrophel. | 10 |
| To you I sing and to none other wight, | |
| For well I wot my rymes bene rudely dight. | |
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| Yet as they been, if any nycer wit | |
| Shall hap to heare, or couet them to read: | |
| Thinke he, that such are for such ones most fit, | 15 |
| Made not to please the liuing but the dead. | |
| And if in him found pity euer place, | |
| Let him be moov’d to pity such a case. | | | | |
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