Classic Poem

Hard was the first, who ventur'd to divide
The youthful bridegroom and the tender bride:
More hard the bridegroom, who can bear the day,
When force has torn his tender bride away.
Here too my patience, here my manhood fails;
The brave grow dastards when fierce grief assails:
Die, die I must! the truth I freely own;
My life too burdensome a load is grown.
Then, when I flit a thin, an empty shade;
When on the mournful pile my corse is laid;
With melting grief, with tresses loose and torn,
Wilt thou, Neaera! for thy husband mourn?
A parent's anguish will thy mother show,
For the lost youth, who liv'd, who died for you?
But see the flames o'er all my body stray!
And now my shade ye call, and now ye pray,
In black array'd: the flame forgets to soar;
And now pure water on your hands ye pour.
My lov'd remains next gather'd in a heap,
With wine ye sprinkle, and in milk ye steep.
The moisture dry'd, within the urn ye lay
My bones, and to the monument convey.
Panchaian odours thither ye will bring,
And all the produce of an eastern spring:
But what than eastern springs I hold more dear,
O wet my ashes with a genuine tear!
Thus, by you both lamented, let me die;
Be thus perform'd my mournful obsequy!
Then shall these lines, by some throng'd way, relate
The dear occasion of my dismal fate:
" Here lies poor Lygdamus; a lovely wife,
Torn from his arms, cut short his thread of life."