“FUNERE MERSIT ACERBO”
Reading edition
(Written by Giosué Carducci at the death of his little son Dante, and addressed to his brother Dante, who had taken his own life years before.)
O thou among the Tuscan hills asleep, Laid with our father in one grassy bed, Faintly, through the green sod above thy head, Hast thou not heard a plaintive child’s voice weep? It is my little son—at thy dark keep He knocketh, he who wore thy name, thy dread And sacred name; he too this life hath fled, Whose ways, my brother, thou didst find so steep. Among the flower-borders as he played, By sunny, childish visions smiled upon, The Shadow caught him to that world how other,— Thy world long since! So now to that chill shade, Oh, welcome him! as backward toward the sun He turns his head, to look, and call his mother.
The Bellman Ruth Shepard Phelps