| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | XXX. Sweet Sorrow
To the Memory of the most excellent Lady Jane, Countess of Perth | | By William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649) |
| | | THIS beauty, which pale death in dust did turn, | |
| And clos’d so soon within a coffin sad, | |
| Did pass like lightning, like to thunder burn; | |
| So little life so much of worth it had! | |
| Heavens but to show their might here made it shine, | 5 |
| And when admir’d, then in the world’s disdain, | |
| (O tears! O grief!) did call it back again, | |
| Lest earth should vaunt she kept what was divine. | |
| What can we hope for more, what more enjoy, | |
| Sith fairest things thus soonest have their end; | 10 |
| And, as on bodies shadows do attend, | |
| Sith all our bliss is follow’d with annoy? | |
| She is not dead, she lives where she did love, | |
| Her memory on earth, her soul above. | | | | |
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