This many a May, your sister being dead,

Ye Christian folk! your sister great and dear.

To breathe her name, to think how sad-sincere

Was all her searching, straying, dreaming, dread,

How of her natural night was Plato bred,

A star to keep the ways of honor clear,

Who will not sigh for her? who can forget

Not only unto campèd Israel,

Nor martyr-maids that as a bridegroom met

The Roman lion’s roar, salvation fell?