For had God granted to her ample days
I might have walked with her down flowered ways
And left this life at last, content, descending
To realms of dark Persephone5, the all-ending,
Without such grievous sorrow in my heart,
Of which earth holdeth not the counterpart.
I marvel not that Niobe6, alone
Amid her dear, dead children, turned to stone.
Lament V
Just as a little olive offshoot grows