| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | XXVI. Melancholy
The Morrow’s Message | | By Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) |
| | | ‘THOU Ghost,’ I said, ‘and is thy name To-day?— | |
| Yesterday’s son, with such an abject brow!— | |
| And can To-morrow be more pale than thou?’ | |
| While yet I spoke, the silence answered: ‘Yea, | |
| Henceforth our issue is all grieved and grey, | 5 |
| And each beforehand makes such poor avow | |
| As of old leaves beneath the budding bough | |
| Or night-drift that the sundawn shreds away.’ | |
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| Then cried I: ‘Mother of many malisons, | |
| O Earth, receive me to thy dusty bed!’ | 10 |
| But therewithal the tremulous silence said: | |
| ‘Lo! Love yet bids thy lady greet thee once:— | |
| Yea, twice,—whereby thy life is still the sun’s; | |
| And thrice,—whereby the shadow of death is dead.’ | | | | |
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