Lament VI

Dear little Slavic Sappho¹, we had thought,

Hearing thy songs so sweetly, deftly wrought,

That thou shouldst have an heritage one day

Beyond thy father’s lands: his lute to play.

For not an hour of daylight’s joyous round

But thou didst fill it full of lovely sound,

Just as the nightingale doth scatter pleasure

Upon the dark, in glad unstinted measure.

Then Death came stalking near thee, timid thing,