He will swear he loves thee dearer than the blood in all his veins; Whether husband, or if only that cold "sister" name remains. Ah! but "wife" he calls it: nothing takes this sweet hope from his soul! Till a hapless ghost he wanders where the Stygian waters roll. ELEGY THE SECOND HE DIED FOR LOVE Whoe'er from darling bride her husband dear First forced to part, had but a heart of stone; And not less hard the man who could appear To bear such loss and live unloved, alone. I am but weak in this; such fortitude My soul has not; grief breaks my spirit quite. I shame not to declare it is my mood To sicken of a life such sorrows smite. When I shall journey to the shadowy land, And over my white bones black ashes be, Beside my pyre let fair Neaera stand, With long, loose locks unbound, lamenting me. Let her dear mother's grief with hers have share, One mourn a husband, one a son bewail! Then call upon my ghost with holy prayer, And pour ablution o'er their fingers pale. The white bones, which my body's wreck outlast, Girdled in flowing black they will upbear, Sprinkle with rare, old wine, and gently cast In bath of snowy milk, with pious care. These will they swathe with linen mantles o'er, And lay unmouldering in their marble bed; Then gift of Arab or Panchaian shore, Assyrian balm and Orient incense shed. And may they o'er my tomb the gift disburse Of faithful tears, remembering him below; For those cold ashes I have made this verse, That all my doleful way of death may know. My oft-frequented grave the words shall bear, And all who pass will read with pitying eyes:-- "_Here Lygdamus, consumed with grief and care "For his lost bride Neaera, hapless lies_." ELEGY THE THIRD RICHES ARE USELESS 'Tis vain to plague the skies with eager prayer, And offer incense with thy votive song, If only thou dost ask for marbles fair, To deck thy palace for the gazing throng. Not wider fields my oxen to employ, Nor flowing harvests and abundant land, I ask of heaven; but for a long life's joy With thee, and in old age to clasp thy hand. If when my season of sweet light is o'er, I, carrying nothing, unto Charon yield, What profits me a ponderous golden store, Or that a thousand yoke must plough my field? What if proud Phrygian columns fill my halls, Taenarian, Carystian, and the rest, Or branching groves adorn my spacious walls, Or golden roof, or floor with marbles dressed? What pleasure in rare Erythraean dyes, Or purple pride of Sidon and of Tyre, Or all that can solicit envious eyes, And which the mob of fools so well admire? Wealth has no power to lift life's load of care, Or free man's lot from Fortune's fatal chain; With thee, Neaera, poverty looks fair, And lacking thee, a kingdom were in vain.