| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | IV. Inevitable
‘O Sorrow, alas, sith Sorrow is thy name’ | | By Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset (1536–1608) |
| | From ‘The Induction’
O SORROW, alas, sith Sorrow is thy name, | |
| And that to thee this drear doth well pertain, | |
| In vain it were to seek to cease the same: | |
| But, as a man himself with sorrow slain, | |
| So I, alas, do comfort thee in pain, | 5 |
| That here in sorrow art foresunk so deep | |
| That, at thy sight, I can but sigh and weep. | |
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| ‘Lo here,’ quoth Sorrow; ‘Princes of renown, | |
| That whilom sat on top of fortune’s wheel, | |
| Now laid full low, like wretches whirlèd down, | 10 |
| Ev’n with one frown, that stay’d but with a smile: | |
| And now behold the thing that thou erewhile | |
| Saw only in thought; and what thou now shalt hear, | |
| Recount the same to kesar, king, and peer.’ | | | | |
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