dots-menu
×

Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  761. ‘If I were dead’

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

Coventry Patmore. 1823–1896

761. ‘If I were dead’

‘IF I were dead, you’d sometimes say, Poor Child!’ 
The dear lips quiver’d as they spake, 
And the tears brake 
From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled. 
Poor Child, poor Child!         5
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,  10
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!  15
Poor Child!