My heart is all untamed for evermore;
The strings hang loose and warp’d for evermore;
The rocks resound not with my olden songs,
Nor melt in echoes on the tranced breeze;
The streams flow on to music all their own;
The magic of my lyre hath pass’d away,
For Love ne’er sweeps sweet music from its chords;
For thou art pass’d away, Eurydice;
Thou tuner of my song, Eurydice;
And there is nought to guide the erring tones
That once breath’d but of thee, Eurydice;
That made each breeze sweet with Eurydice;
And taught each fountain and each running stream
To sing of thee, O lost Eurydice!

The serpent saw thee, O Eurydice! 
The serpent slew thee, O Eurydice! 
Stealing amongst the grass, Eurydice;
The long rank grass, that stretched Briarian arms
To clasp thee to itself, Eurydice! 
And soon they laid thee from the sight of men;
Laid thee beneath the rankly waving grass;
Opening Earth’s portals wide to let thee wend
Forth to Plutonian realms of gloom away;
And never more about the waiting land
Stray’d thy light steps at morn or shady eve. 
No fountain hid thine image in its heart;
No flowers leapt up to wreathe thy golden hair;
No more the fawns within the forest glade
Follow’d a foot more lightsome than their own;
The moon stole through the night in dim surprise;
And all the stars look’d pale with wondering;
For thou cam’st not, O lost Eurydice! 
Earth found thee not, O lost Eurydice! 
Love found thee not, O lost Eurydice!

I could not stay where thou wert not, forlorn;
I could not live, O lost Eurydice!—­
Not Acheron itself could fright me back
From where thy footsteps wander’d, best beloved! 
And so I sought thee e’en at Hades’ gate,
Charm’d wide its leaves with melody of woe,
And dared the grave to keep me from thine arms;
I flow’d away upon a stream of song,
E’en to dark Pluto’s grimly guarded throne,
Melting the cruel Cerberus himself,
The Parcae, and snake-lock’d Eumenides,
To pity of my measureless despair. 
I sang thy beauty, O Eurydice! 
I sigh’d my love forth, O Eurydice! 
With tears and weary sighs, Eurydice! 
And at thy name the pains of Hell grew light;
Ixion’s wheel stopp’d in its weary rounds,
The rock of Sisyphus forgot to roll,
And draughts of comfort flow’d o’er Tantalus:—­
Then from old Dis’s hands the keys slipp’d down,
And words of hope and pity spake he forth. 
He promised thee again if I would go,
Never back-looking, from those realms of gloom,
Those realms of gloom where thou wert, best beloved.