dots-menu
×

Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  759. Heraclitus

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

William (Johnson) Cory. 1823–1892

759. Heraclitus

THEY told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, 
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. 
I wept as I remember’d 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,         5
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest, 
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake; 
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.