"'For thee, my son, I wept my life away;

For thee through hell's eternal dungeons stray:

Nor came my fate by lingering pains and slow,

Nor bent the silver-shafted queen her bow;

No dire disease bereaved me of my breath;

Thou, thou, my son, wert my disease and death;

Unkindly with my love my son conspired,

For thee I lived, for absent thee expired.'

Thrice in my arms I strove her shade to bind,

Thrice through my arms she slipp'd like empty wind,

Or dreams, the vain illusions of the mind.

Wild with despair, I shed a copious tide

Of flowing tears, and thus with sighs replied:

"'Fliest thou, loved shade, while I thus fondly mourn!

Turn to my arms, to my embraces turn!

Is it, ye powers that smile at human harms!

Too great a bliss to weep within her arms?

Or has hell's queen an empty image sent,

That wretched I might e'en my joys lament?'

'O son of woe,' the pensive shade rejoin'd;

O most inured to grief of all mankind!

'Tis not the queen of hell who thee deceives;

All, all are such, when life the body leaves:

The Odyssey of Homer