Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916.
When I beneath the cold red earth am sleepingWilliam Motherwell (17971835)
W
Life’s fever o’er,
Will there for me be any bright eye weeping
That I’m no more?
Will there be any heart still memory keeping
Of heretofore?
Like full hearts break,
When the swollen streams, o’er crag and gully gushing,
Sad music make;
Will there be one, whose heart despair is crushing,
Mourn for my sake?
With purest ray,
And the small flowers, their buds and blossoms twining,
Burst through that clay;
Will there be one still on that spot repining
Lost hopes all day?
Of her dark pall,
The world and all its manifold creation sleeping,
The great and small—
Will there be one, even at that dread hour, weeping
For me—for all?
On that low mound;
And wintry storms have with their ruins hoary
Its loneness crowned;
Will there be then one versed in misery’s story
Pacing it round?
To ask such meed,—
A weakness and a wickedness to borrow,
From hearts that bleed,
The wailings of to-day, for what to-morrow
Shall never need.
Thou gentle heart;
And though thy bosom should with grief be swelling,
Let no tear start;
It were in vain—for Time hath long been knelling—
Sad one, depart!