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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  Epitaph

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Epitaph

By José-Maria de Heredia (1842–1905)

After the Verses of Henri III.

Translation of Maurice Francis Egan

HERE sleeps, O passer, Hyacinth the Lord

Of Maugiron, dead, gone, at rest:

May God absolve and keep him near his breast;

Fallen to earth, he lies in holy sward.

None—even Quélus—wore the pearly cord,

The plumèd cap, or ruff more meetly prest;

Behold by a new Myron well exprest

A spray of hyacinth in marble scored.

And having kissed him and most tenderly

Placed him in coffin, Henry willed that he

At Saint-Germain be laid;—fair, wan, he lies.

And wishing that such grief should never die,

He made in church, all changes to defy,

This sweet, sad symbol of Apollo’s sighs.