THIS girl was sweeter than the song of swans,

And daintier than the lamb upon the lawns

Or Curine oyster¹. She, the flower of girls,

Outshone the light of Erythraean pearls;

The teeth of India that with polish glow,

The untouched lilies or the morning snow.

Her tresses did gold-dust outshine

And fair hair of women of the Rhine.

Compared to her the peacock seemed not fair,

The squirrel lively, or the phoenix² rare;

Her on whose pyre the smoke still hovering³ waits;

Her whom the greedy and unequal fates

On the sixth dawning of her natal⁴ day,

My child-love and my playmate — snatcht away.

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