Paaen, or praise, or moan,
Alone beneath the skies
Hath Death no altar-stone!

There is no head so dear
That men would grudge to Death;
Let Death but ask, we give
All gifts that we may live;
But though Death dwells so near,
We know not what he saith.



NYSA--(Soph., Fr., 235; AEsch., Fr., 56.)



On these Nysaean shores divine
The clusters ripen in a day.
At dawn the blossom shreds away;
The berried grapes are green and fine
And full by noon; in day's decline
They're purple with a bloom of grey,
And e'er the twilight plucked are they,
And crushed, by nightfall, into wine.

But through the night with torch in hand
Down the dusk hills the Maenads fare;
The bull-voiced mummers roar and blare,
The muffled timbrels swell and sound,