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Home  »  The Book of Sorrow  »  David Mallet (c. 1705–1765)

Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916.

From ‘William and Margaret’

David Mallet (c. 1705–1765)

’TWAS at the silent, solemn hour

When night and morning meet;

In glided Margaret’s grimly ghost,

And stood at William’s feet.

Her face was like an April-morn

Clad in a wintry cloud;

And clay-cold was her lily-hand,

That held her sable shroud.

So shall the fairest face appear

When youth and years are flown:

Such is the robe that kings must wear,

When Death has reft their crown.

Her bloom was like the springing flower,

That sips the silvery dew;

The rose was budded in her cheek—

Just opening to the view.

But love had, like the canker-worm,

Consum’d her early prime:

The rose grew pale, and left her cheek;

She died before her time.

‘Awake!’ she cried, ‘thy true-love calls,

Come from her midnight grave;

Now let thy pity hear the maid

Thy love refused to save.’…

He hied him to the fatal place

Where Margaret’s body lay;

And stretch’d him on the green-grass turf

That wrapt her breathless clay.

And thrice he called on Margaret’s name,

And thrice he wept full sore;

Then laid his cheek to her cold grave,

And word spake never more!