The Poems of Oscar Wilde/Ailinon, ailinon eipe

by Oscar Wilde

For other versions of this work, see A Lament (Wilde).

Αἴλινον, αἴλινον εἰπέ, τὸ δ' εὖ νικάτω.

O well for him who lives at ease
With garnered gold in wide domain,
Nor heeds the splashing of the rain,
The crashing down of forest trees.

 

O well for him who ne'er hath known
The travail of the hungry years,
A father grey with grief and tears,
A mother weeping all alone.

 

But well for him whose foot hath trod
The weary road of toil and strife,
Yet from the sorrows of his life
Builds ladders to be nearer God.