The Dead Poet-Friend

Callimachus (c. 310–240 B.C.)

From the Greek by W. Cory

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 he cannot take.