THE DEAD POET-FRIEND

THEY told me, Heracleitus, they told me you were dead;
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of gray ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales,
awake,
For Death he taketh all away, but these cannot take.

From the Greek of Callimachus.
Translation of W. Cory.