Remembered on the Peloponnesian roads,

He and his serving-boy and his concubine,

White-headed and light-hearted, their true wits gone

Past the last stroke of time into a day

Without a yesterday or a to-morrow,

A brightness laid like a blue lake around them,

Or endless field to play or linger in.

They were so gay and innocent, you’d have thought

A god had won a glorious prize for them

In some celestial field, and the odds were gone,

Fate sent on holiday, the earth and heaven

Thenceforth in endless friendly talk together.

They were quite storyless and had clean forgotten

That memory burning in another world;

But they too leaf-light now for any story.

If anyone spoke a word of other guilt

By chance before them, then they stamped their feet

In rage and gnashed their teeth like peevish children.

But then forgot. The road their welcoming home.

They would not stay in a house or let a door

Be shut on them. The surly Spartan farmers

Were kind to them, pitying their happiness.