sleeps Achilles? (thus the phantom said:) Sleeps my Achilles, his Patroclus dead? Living, I seem'd his dearest, tenderest care, But now forgot, I wander in the air. Let my pale corse the rites of burial know, And give me entrance in the realms below: Till then the spirit finds no resting-place, But here and there the unbodied spectres chase The vagrant dead around the dark abode, Forbid to cross the irremeable flood. Now give thy hand; for to the farther shore When once we pass, the soul returns no more: When once the last funereal flames ascend, No more shall meet Achilles and his friend; No more our thoughts to those we loved make known; Or quit the dearest, to converse alone. Me fate has sever'd from the sons of earth, The fate fore-doom'd that waited from my birth: Thee too it waits; before the Trojan wall Even great and godlike thou art doom'd to fall. Hear then; and as in fate and love we join, Ah suffer that my bones may rest with thine! Together have we lived; together bred, One house received us, and one table fed; That golden urn, thy goddess-mother gave, May mix our ashes in one common grave." "And is it thou? (he answers) To my sight(283) Once more return'st thou from the realms of night? O more than brother! Think each office paid, Whate'er can rest a discontented shade; But grant one last embrace, unhappy boy! Afford at least that melancholy joy." He said, and with his longing arms essay'd In vain to grasp the visionary shade! Like a thin smoke he sees the spirit fly,(284) And hears a feeble, lamentable cry. Confused he wakes; amazement breaks the bands Of golden sleep, and starting from the sands, Pensive he muses with uplifted hands: "'Tis true, 'tis certain; man, though dead, retains Part of himself; the immortal mind remains: The form subsists without the body's aid, Aerial semblance, and an empty shade! This night my friend, so late in battle lost, Stood at