| |
| HARD by the banished Euxine (a black doom!) | |
| Haunted the poet Ovid. He was sent, | |
| With love upon his soul, to banishment, | |
| And sank, an amorous meteor, quenched in gloom. | |
| Bright tears were lost when Ovid died. A man | 5 |
| Who loved and mourned so sweetly well might win | |
| Melodious sorrow for his unknown sin. | |
| All ages wept his fate: Politian | |
| Developed his brave wrath in ten-foot verse, | |
| And many a nameless scribbler rhymed a curse: | 10 |
| Only Augustus, in his timorous pride, | |
| Exiled the poet from his beauty’s side, | |
| Sending him, fettered, to the banished sea. | |
| But who may chain the poet’s spirit free? | |
| He thought and murmured—oh! and late and long | 15 |
| Bestowed the music of his soul in song; | |
| Bequeathed to every wind that kissed that shore, | |
| Sighs for lost Rome, which he must see no more; | |
| Regrets, repinings (of all hope bereft), | |
| And tears for Cæsar’s daughter, loved and left! | 20 |
| And so it was he wept long years away | |
| By savage waters; so did he rehearse, | |
| Throughout the paleness of the winter’s day, | |
| The many sorrows of his love-crowned verse, | |
| Until, in the end, he died. His grave is lost; | 25 |
| Somewhere it lies beyond all guess, all reach, | |
| Though bands of wandering lovers, passion-crossed, | |
| Have sought to find it on that desert beach. | |
| |
