| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | XXVI. Melancholy
Newborn Death | | By Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) |
| | | AND thou, O Life, the lady of all bliss, | |
| With whom, when our first heart beat full and fast, | |
| I wandered till the haunts of men were pass’d, | |
| And in fair places found all bowers amiss | |
| Till only woods and waves might hear our kiss, | 5 |
| While to the winds all thought of Death we cast:— | |
| Ah, Life! and must I have from thee at last | |
| No smile to greet me and no babe but this? | |
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| Lo! Love, the child once ours; and Song, whose hair | |
| Blew like a flame and blossomed like a wreath; | 10 |
| And Art, whose eyes were worlds by God found fair; | |
| These o’er the book of Nature mixed their breath | |
| With neck-twined arms, as oft we watched them there: | |
| And did these die that thou mightst bear me Death? | | | | |
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