Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The Funeral Dirge

O'er the sad threshold, where the cypress bough
Supplants the rose that should adorn thy home,
On the last pilgrimage on earth that now
Awaits thee, wanderer to Cocytus, come!
Darkly we woo, and weeping we invite-
Death is thy host-his banquet asks thy soul,
Thy garlands hang within the House of Night,
And the black stream alone shall fill thy bowl.

No more for thee the laughter and the song,
The jocund night-the glory of the day!
The Argive daughters' at their labours long;
The hell-bird swooping on its Titan prey-

The false AEolides upheaving slow,
O'er the eternal hill, the eternal stone;
The crowned Lydian, in his parching woe,
And green Callirrhoe's monster-headed son-

These shalt thou see, dim shadowed through the dark,
Which makes the sky of Pluto's dreary shore;
Lo! where thou stand'st, pale-gazing on the bark ,
That waits our rite to bear thee trembling o'er!
Come, then! no more delay!-the phantom pines
Amidst the Unburied for its latest home;
O'er the grey sky the torch impatient shines-
Come, mourner, forth!-the lost one bids thee come.