The Death of Adonis (Way)

This is the lamentation-song
For Adonis—woe for Adonis, woe!
Thus wailed Aphrodite in anguish-throe,
As she strove to hold him back from death:
"Let thine heart not faint, O love! Be strong!
O me, it burns me, thy failing breath!
It kindles through all my being a fire!
My heart is aflame with despairing desire!"
She calls to her Eros of golden wing,
She bids him steep in the ice-cold spring
Fine linen, and lay on Adonis' brow:—
"O love, let its coolness revive thee now! . . .
Vain, vain!—his eyes see me no more;
They are fixed in a gaze upon Hades' door!
They close—he sleeps—not the sleep of the dead!
Hush, stir not a pebble with heedless tread!
No, no! this is death! Now remaineth to me
No sweetness on earth—nor honey nor bee!"