Why do you mourn your lovely girl?
Did you not say your dearest pearl
Was clear conscience? Doesn't your woe
Prove that untrue?
Only the godless - you have said -
Fear death; then what about your dread,
When threats were Antony's rewards
For your bold words?
Your logic, 0 angelic pen,
Compelling to the minds of men,
Rings hollow when your soul, like mine,
Cries out in pain.
Man is not stone; his wounds run deep;
His joys are like a scar on top;
And once it's touched, that buried ache
Throbs wide awake.
Time, father of forgetfulness,
Stronger than reason and no less
Potent than faith; heal, heal my heart
That's tom apart.
Lament 2
If my vocation had been children's rhymes
And my true art the one that mimes and calms
The rhythms of the cradle, then my verse
Might have made dandling songs for the wet nurse
To sing to her new charge until at last
Its tears would stop and its small woes be past!
Such jingles would have been of much more use
Than what misfortune forces me to choose:
To weep on a small daughter's grave, to keen
Her loss to Pluto's dark hard-hearted queen.
Admittedly, my choice was never free:
