ELEGY THE SECOND

HE DIED FOR LOVE


Whoe'er from darling bride her husband dear
First forced to part, had but a heart of stone;
And not less hard the man who could appear
To bear such loss and live unloved, alone.

I am but weak in this; such fortitude
My soul has not; grief breaks my spirit quite.
I shame not to declare it is my mood
To sicken of a life such sorrows smite.

When I shall journey to the shadowy land,
And over my white bones black ashes be,
Beside my pyre let fair Neaera stand,
With long, loose locks unbound, lamenting me.

Let her dear mother's grief with hers have share,
One mourn a husband, one a son bewail!
Then call upon my ghost with holy prayer,
And pour ablution o'er their fingers pale.

The white bones, which my body's wreck outlast,