A roadside harp :: :: University of Virginia Library

I laid the strewings, sweetest, on thine urn;
I lowered the torch, I poured the cup to Dis.
Now hushaby, my little child, and learn
Long sleep how good it is.

In vain thy mother prays, wayfaring hence,
Peace to her heart, where only heartaches dwell;
But thou more blest, O wild intelligence!
Forget her, and Farewell.

II

Gentle Grecian passing by,
Father of thy peace am I:
Wouldst thou now, in memory,
Give a soldier's flower to me,
Choose the flag I named of yore
Beautiful Worth-dying-for,
That shall wither not, but wave
All the year above my grave.

III

Light thou hast of the moon,
Shade of the dammar-pine,
Here on thy hillside bed;
Fair befall thee, O fair
Lily of womanhood,
Patient long, and at last
Here on thy hillside bed,
Happier: ah, Blæsilla!

IV

Two white heads the grasses cover:
Dorcas, and her lifelong lover.
While they graced their country closes
Simply as the brooks and roses,
Where was lot so poor, so trodden,
But they cheered it of a sudden?
Fifty years at home together,
Hand in hand, they went elsewhither,
Then first leaving hearts behind
Comfortless. Be thou as kind.

V

Upon thy level tomb, till windy winter dawn,
The fallen leaves delay;
But plain and pure their trace is, when themselves are torn
From delicate frost away.

As here to transient frost the absent leaf is, such
Thou wert and art to me:
So on my passing life is thy long-passèd touch,
O dear Alcithoë!

VI

Hail, and be of comfort, thou pious Xeno,
Late the urn of many a kinsman wreathing;
On thine own shall even the stranger offer
Plentiful myrtle.

VII

Here lies one in the earth who scarce of the earth was moulded,
Wise Æthalides' son, himself no lover of study,

Cnopus, asleep, indoors: the young invincible runner.
They from the cliff footpath that see on the grave we made him,
Tameless, slant in the wind, the bare and beautiful iris,
Stop short, full of delight, and shout forth: “See, it is Cnopus
Runs, with white throat forward, over the sands to Chalcis!”

VIII

Ere the Ferryman from the coast of spirits
Turn the diligent oar that brought thee thither,
Soul, remember: and leave a kiss upon it
For thy desolate father, for thy sister,
Whichsoever be first to cross hereafter.

IX

Jaffa ended, Cos begun
Thee, Aristeus. Thou wert one
Fit to trample out the sun:
Who shall think thine ardors are
But a cinder in a jar?

X

Me, deep-tressèd meadows, take to your loyal keeping,
Hard by the swish of sickles ever in Aulon sleeping,
Philophron, old and tired, and glad to be done with reaping!

XI

As wind that wasteth the unmarried rose,
And mars the golden breakers in the bay,
Hurtful and sweet from heaven forever blows
Sad thought that roughens all our quiet day;

And elder poets envy while they weep
Ion, whom first the gods to covert brought,
Here under inland olives laid asleep,
Most wise, most happy, having done with thought.

XII

Cows in the narrowing August marshes,
Cows in a stretch of water
Motionless,
Neck on neck overlapped and drooping;

These in their troubled and dumb communion,
Thou on the steep bank yonder,
Pastora!
No more ever to lead and love them,

No more ever. Thine innocent mourners
Pass thy tree in the evening
Heavily,
Hearing another herd-girl calling.

XIII

Praise thou the Mighty Mother for what is wrought, not me,
A nameless nothing-caring head asleep against her knee.