Classic Poem

O my lost Husband! let me ever mourn
Thy early Fate, and too untimely Urn:
In the full Pride of Youth thy Glories fade,
And thou in ashes must with them be laid.
Why is my heart thus miserably torn!
Why am I thus distress'd! why thus forlorn!
Am I that wretched Thing, a Widow left?
Why do I live, who am of Life bereft!
Yet I were blest, were I alone undone;
Alas, my Child! where can an Infant run?
Unhappy Orphan! thou in Woes art nurst;
Why were you born?--I am with Blessings curst!
For long e're thou shalt be to Manhood grown,
Wide Desolation will lay waste this Town:
Who is there now that can Protection give,
Since He, who was her strength, no more doth live?
Who of her Rev'rend Matrons, will have Care?
Who save her Children from the Rage of War?
For He to All Father and Husband was,
And all are Orphans now, and Widows by his Loss.
Soon will the Grecians, now, insulting come,
And bear us Captives to their distant Home;
I, with my Child, must the same Fortune share,
And all alike, be Pris'ners of the War:
'Mongst base-born Wretches he, his Lot must have,
And be to some inhuman Lord, a Slave.
Else some avenging Greek, with Fury fill'd,
Or for an only Son, or Father kill'd
By Hector's hand, on him will vent his Rage,
And with his Blood his thirsty grief asswage;
For many fell by his relentless Hand,
Biting that Ground, which with their Blood was stain'd.
Fierce was thy Father (O my Child) in War,
And never did his Foe in Battel spare;
Thence come these suff'rings, which, so much have cost,
Much Woe to all, but sure to me the most.
I saw him not, when in the pangs of Death,
Nor did my Lips receive his latest Breath;
Why held he not to me his dying hand?
And why receiv'd not I his last Command?
Something he wou'd have said, had I been there,
Which I should still in sad remembrance bear;
For I could never, never Words forget,
Which Night and Day, I wou'd with Tears repeat.