Not Sparta's queen alone was firedBy broider'd robe and braided tress,And all the splendours that attiredHer lover's guilty loveliness:Not only Teucer to the fieldHis arrows brought, nor Ilion Beneath a single conqueror reel'd:Not Crete's majestic lord alone,Or Sthenelus, earn'd the Muses' crown:Not Hector first for child and wife,Or brave Deiphobus, laid downThe burden of a manly life.Before Atrides men were brave:But ah! oblivion, dark and long,Has lock'd them in a tearless grave,For lack of consecrating song.'Twixt worth and baseness, lapp'd in death,What difference? You shall ne'er be dumb,While strains of mine have voice and breath:The dull neglect of days to come