| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | X. The Pity of It
On the Death of a fair Infant | | By John Milton (1608–1674) |
| | | O FAIREST flower no sooner blown but blasted, | |
| Soft silken primrose fading timelessly, | |
| Summer’s chief honour if thou hadst outlasted | |
| Bleak Winter’s force that made thy blossom dry: | |
| For he being amorous on that lovely dye | 5 |
| That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss, | |
| But killed alas! and then bewailed his fatal bliss. | |
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| Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead | |
| Or that thy corse corrupts in earth’s dark womb, | |
| Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed | 10 |
| Hid from the world in a low delvèd tomb; | |
| Could Heaven, for pity, thee so strictly doom? | |
| Oh no! for something in thy face did shine | |
| Above mortality that showed thou wast divine. | | | | |
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