Mothers of Memnon and Achilles shed,
If gods in mortal grief have any share,
O Muse of tears! bow down thy mournful head!

Tibullus, thy true minstrel and best fame,
Mere lifeless clay, on tall-built pyre doth blaze;
While Eros, with rent bow, extinguished flame,
And quiver empty, his wild grief displays.

Behold, he comes with trailing wing forlorn,
And smites with desperate hands his bosom bare!
Tears rain unheeded o'er his tresses turn,
And many a trembling sob his soft lips bear.

Thus for a brother Eros mourned of yore,
Aeneas, in Iulus' regal hall;
Not less do Venus' eyes this death deplore
Than when she saw her slain Adonis fall.

Yet poets are sacred! Simple souls have deemed
That ranked with gods we sons of song may stand,
See one and all by sullen Death blasphemed,
And violated by his shadowy hand!

Little avails it Orpheus that his sire
Was more than man; for though his songs restrain
The wolves of Ismara, his love-lorn lyre
Wails in the wildwood gloom with anguish vain.

Maeonides, from whose exhaustless well