Lament For The Two Brothers Slain By Each Other's Hand

Now do our eyes behold

The tidings which were told:

Twin fallen kings, twin perished hopes to mourn,

The slayer, the slain,

The entangled doom forlorn

And ruinous end of twain.

Say, is not sorrow, is not sorrow's sum

On home and hearthstone come?

Oh, waft with sighs the sail from shore,

Oh, smite the bosom, cadencing the oar

That rows beyond the rueful stream for aye

To the far strand,

The ship of souls, the dark,

The unreturning bark

Whereon light never falls nor foot of Day,

Even to the bourne of all, to the unbeholden land.

This English translation, by A.E. Housman, of 'Lament for the Two Brothers Slain by Each Other's Hand' is reprinted from Greek Poets in English Verse. Ed. William Hyde Appleton. Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1893.

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