Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916.
On a Dead ChildRichard Middleton (18821911)
M
And so I wander’d up to where you lay,
A little rose among the little roses,
And no more dead than they.
You did not greet me from your flower-strewn bed,
Yet still I knew that you were only playing—
Playing at being dead.
So quiet lay your eyelids to the sky,
So still your hair, but surely you were peeping,
And so I did not cry.
And so I smiled and gently called your name,
Added my rose to your sweet heap of roses,
And left you to your game.