Stephanie's Epiphanies

Mourn, O you Loves and Cupids

and such of you as love beauty:

my girl’s sparrow is dead,

sparrow, the girl’s delight,

whom she loved more than her eyes.

For he was sweet as honey, and knew her

as well as the girl her own mother,

he never moved from her lap,

but, hopping about here and there,

chirped to his mistress alone.

Now he goes down the shadowy road

from which they say no one returns.

Now let evil be yours, evil shadows of Orcus,

that devour everything of beauty:

you’ve stolen lovely sparrow from me.

O evil deed! O poor little sparrow!

Now, by your efforts, my girl’s eyes

are swollen and red with weeping.