Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

William Johnson Cory 1823–92

Heracleitus

Cory-Wil

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 remember’d how often you and I

Had tir’d 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 them he cannot take.