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
All bards since then some tribute stream derive,--
Him, even him, th' Avernian shades camped;
Only his songs his scattered dust survive
Yet songs endure. Endures the Trojan fame,
And how Penelope's wise nights were passed.
So Nemesis and Delia have a name,--
A poet's earliest passion and his last.
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