Classic Poem

With the dead at last thou sleep'st, Anacreon,
having lived and loved and laboured well,
And thy nightly-speaking lyre is silent that
could charm with music's sweetest spell.
Sleepeth too in death thy well-loved Smerda,
once of all thy fond desires the spring,

In whose praise in golden nectarous numbers
did thy tones harmoniously ring.
For young Eros' shafts thou wast a shining
mark: on thee his choicest gifts he shed;
Fare thee well, O vanished in the darkness,
dwell forever with the deathless dead!