Sapphic Fragment

“Thou shalt be—Nothing.”—OMAR KHAYYÁM.

“Tombless, with no remembrance.”—W. SHAKESPEARE.

DEAD shalt thou lie; and nought Be told of thee or thought, For thou hast plucked not of the Muses’ tree: And even in Hades’ halls Amidst thy fellow-thralls No friendly shade thy shade shall company!

CATULLUS: XXXI (After passing Sirmione, April 1887.)

SIRMIO, thou dearest dear of strands That Neptune strokes in lake and sea, With what high joy from stranger lands Doth thy old friend set foot on thee! Yea, barely seems it true to me That no Bithynia holds me now, But calmly and assuringly Around me stretchest homely Thou.

Is there a scene more sweet than when Our clinging cares are undercast, And, worn by alien moils and men, The long untrodden sill repassed, We press the pined for couch at last, And find a full repayment there? Then hail, sweet Sirmio; thou that wast, And art, mine own unrivalled Fair!