Epitaph On a Beloved Friend
by George Gordon, Lord Byron
(Composed: 1803)
(From Hours of Idleness - 1807)
- Oh, Friend! for ever loved, for ever dear!
- What fruitless tears have bathed thy honourd bier!
- What sighs reechod to thy parting breath,
- Wilst thou wast struggling in the pangs of death!
- Could tears retard the tyrant in his course;
- Could sighs avert his darts relentless force;
- Could youth and virtue claim a short delay,
- Or beauty charm the spectre from his prey;
- Thou still hadst lived to bless my aching sight,
- Thy comrades honour and thy friends delight.
- If yet thy gentle spirit hover nigh
- The spot where now thy mouldering ashes lie,
- Here wilt thou read, recorded on my heart,
- A grief too deep to trust the sculptors art.
- No marble marks thy couch of lowly sleep,
- But living statues there are seen to weep;
- Afflictions semblance bands not oer thy tomb,
- Afflictions self deplores thy youthful doom.
- What though thy sire lament his failing line,
- A fathers sorrows cannot equal mine!
- Though none, like thee, his dying hour will cheer,
- Yet other offspring soothe his anguish here:
- But who with me shall hold thy former place?
- Thine image what new friendship can efface?
- Ah, none!a fathers tears will cease to flow,
- Time will assuage an infant brothers woe;
- To all, save one, is consolation known,
- While solitary friendship sighs alone.
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