Lament IV
Jan Kochanowski 1530 (Sycyna Północna) – 1584 (Lublin)
Thou hast constrained mine eyes, unholy Death,
To watch my dear child breathe her dying breath:
To watch thee shake the fruit unripe and clinging
While fear and grief her parents' hearts were wringing.
Ah, never, never could my well-loved child
Have died and left her father reconciled:
Never but with a heart like heavy lead
Could I have watched her go, abandoned.
And yet at no time could her death have brought
More cruel ache than now, nor bitterer thought;
For had God granted to her ample days
I might have walked with her down flowered ways
And left this life at last, content, descending
To realms of dark Persephone, the all-ending,
Without such grievous sorrow in my heart,
Of which earth holdeth not the counterpart.
I marvel not that Niobe, alone
Amid her dear, dead children, turned to stone.
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 42 sec read
- 6 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AABBCCDEFFGGBBHHII |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 788 |
Words | 141 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 18 |
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"Lament IV" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/55751/lament-iv>.
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