Where art thou, pale and melancholy ghost? No funeral rites appease thy tombless clay; Unburied, glidest thou by the dismal coast, O exile from the day?
There, where the voice of love is heard no more, Where the dull wave moans back the eternal wail, Dost thou recall the summer suns of yore, Thine own melodious vale?
Thy Lares stand on thy deserted floors, And miss their last sweet daughter's holy face; What hand shall wreathe with flowers the threshold doors? What child renew the race?
Thine are the nuptials of the dreary shades, Of all thy groves what rests?— the cypress tree! As from the air a strain of music fades, Dark silence buries thee!
Yet no, lost child of more than mortal sires, Thy stranger bridegroom bears thee to his home, Where the stars light the AEsars’ nuptial fires In Tina's azure dome;
From the fierce wave the god's celestial wing Rapt thee aloft along the yielding air; With amaranths fresh from heaven's eternal spring, Bright Cuprabraids thy hair,
Ah, in those halls for us thou wilt not mourn, Far are the AEsars’ joys from human woe: But not the less forsaken and forlorn Those thou hast left below!
Never, oh never more, shall we behold thee, The last spark dies upon the sacred hearth; Art thou less lost, though heavenly arms enfold thee — Art thou less lost to earth?
Slow swells the sorrowing Naeniae's chanted strain: Time, with slow flutes, our leaden footsteps keep; Sad earth, whate'er the happier heaven may gain, Hath but a loss to weep.
Cookies on Poetry Cove