C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

“If I Were Dead”

“IF I were dead, you’d sometimes say, Poor child!”

The dear lips quivered as they spake,

And the tears brake

From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled.

Poor child, poor child!

I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song.

It is not true that Love will do no wrong.

Poor child!

And did you think, when you so cried and smiled,

How I, in lonely nights, should lie awake,

And of those words your full avengers make?

Poor child, poor child!

And now, unless it be

That sweet amends thrice told are come to thee,

O God, have thou no mercy upon me?

Poor child!