Read "Translation from Catullus" by Lord Byron online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
[Lugete, Veneres, Cupidinesque, &c.]
Ye Cupids, droop each little head, / Nor let your wings with joy be spread; / My Lesbia's favourite bird is dead, / Whom dearer than her eyes she loved: / For he was gentle, and so true, / Obedient to her call he flew, / No fear, no wild alarm he knew, / But lightly o'er her bosom moved:
And softly fluttering here and there, / He never sought to cleave the air, / But chirrup'd oft, and, free from care, / Tuned to her ear his grateful strain.
Now having pass'd the gloomy bourne / From whence he never can return, / His death and Lesbia's grief I mourn, / Who sighs, alas! but sighs in vain.
Oh! curst be thou, devouring grave! / Whose jaws eternal victims crave, / From whom no earthly power can save, / For thou hast ta'en the bird away: / From thee my Lesbia's eyes o'erflow, / Her swollen cheeks with weeping glow; / Thou art the cause of all her woe, / Receptacle of life's decay.