Knowest thou not me? Not yet, unhappy wife? Or are my features perished with my life? Look once again, and for thy husband lost, Lo! all that's left of him, thy husband's ghost! Thy vows for my return were all in vain; } Thy stormy south o'ertook us in the main; } And never shalt thou see thy loving lord again. } Bear witness, heaven, I called on thee in death, And, while I called, a billow stopped my breath. Think not that flying fame reports my fate; I, present I, appear, and my own wreck relate. Rise, wretched widow, rise, nor undeplored } Permit my ghost to pass the Stygian ford; } But rise, prepared in black to mourn thy perished lord. } Thus said the player-god; and, adding art Of voice and gesture, so performed his part, She thought (so like her love the shade appears) That Ceyx spake the words, and Ceyx shed the tears. She groaned, her inward soul with grief opprest, She sighed, she wept, and sleeping beat her breast: Then stretched her arms to embrace his body bare, Her clasping arms inclose but empty air: At this, not yet awake, she cried,--Oh stay, One is our fate, and common is our way!-- So dreadful was the dream, so loud she spoke, That, starting sudden up, the slumber broke; Then cast her eyes around, in hope to view Her vanished lord, and find the vision true; For now the maids, who waited her commands, Ran in with lighted tapers in their hands. Tired with the search, not finding what she seeks, With cruel blows she pounds her blubbered cheeks; Then from her beaten breast the linen tare, And cut the golden caul that bound her hair. Her nurse demands the cause; with louder cries She prosecutes her griefs, and thus replies. No more Alcyone, she suffered death With her loved lord, when Ceyx lost his breath: No flattery, no false comfort, give me none, My shipwrecked Ceyx is for ever gone; I saw, I saw him manifest in view, His voice, his figure, and his gestures knew: His lustre lost, and every living grace, Yet I retained the features of his face: Though with pale cheeks, wet beard, and dropping hair, None but my Ceyx could appear so fair; I would have strained him with a strict embrace, But through my arms he slipt, and vanished from the place; There, even just there he stood;--and as she spoke, Where last the spectre was, she cast her look; Fain would she hope, and gazed upon the ground, If any printed footsteps might be found; Then sighed, and said;--This I too well foreknew, And my prophetic fear presaged too true; 'Twas what I begged, when with a bleeding heart I took my leave, and suffered thee to part, Or I to go along, or thou to stay, Never, ah never to divide our way! Happier for me, that, all our hours assigned,