Verse > Anthologies > Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. > Poems of Places > Africa
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed.  Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV.  1876–79.
 
Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia: Ensené (Antinoë)
Antinoüs
Thomas Gold Appleton (1812–1884)
 
          The oracle at Besa declared that a great danger threatened Adrian, unless some person very dear to him should offer his life in propitiation. Antinoüs, a favorite of the Emperor, on hearing this, threw himself into the Nile as an offering. To his memory Adrian built the city of Antinoë.

EVEN nigh the golden furnace of a throne,
Flower-like thy loyalty and noble heart
Could live unwithered, and thy better part
The canker of low selfishness disown,
Losing itself hid in another’s love.        5
And when commanding Fate said “for thy friend
Give what he prizes most,”—all fear above,
Or thought that death such intercourse should end,
Thy life thou gavest like some common thing.
Shaming all else, and never to forget        10
The place of sacrifice, the lonely king
Beside the fatal wave a city set
Commemorative, which ruin but endears,
And thy name lives there whispered through our tears.
 
 
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