Of What Importance

Of what importance, O my lovely girls, my dancers, O my
     lovely boys, 
My lovers and my dancers, and my lovely girls, my lovers and
     my dancers,
In a world so loud
Is our sweet noise?

Who is so proud
Of deftness in the ordered dance or on the ever-listening strings 
Or of skill about the ankles with no rudeness the fine Tyrian
     folds
Arranging with such art that none beholds, or when she sings 
Her songs by Aphrodite not unheard, so proud as I?— 
(Who on this day, not unequipped with garlands pleasing to 
     the gods, my lyre and my stylus, my stylus and my life 
     put by!)

Go now to Gorgo, you, and learn from her 
What dancing is and how 'tis done;
But cut for me, if ever you loved me, and you did, from your you 
     sweet-smelling curls 
One each, from each one one,—
For I have a death to die which I may not defer—

And lay on the grave of what I may not live with and sleep well 
Your pretty ringlets, O my pretty girls!—

How long my song must slumber, we shall see, or may not
     ever see—
No one can tell,
This is, I think, the serious death of me.

I die, that the sweet tongue of bound Aeolia never from 
     her throat be torn, that Mitylene may be free
To sing, long after me.

Phaon, I shall not die for you again.
There are few poets. And my own child tells me there are other
     men.

Such poets as henceforth of their own will die, must die for
     more than you.
This I propose to do.
But die to no purpose? in full waste of body's brawn and skill 
     and brain's instructed, rich and devious plot
To live?—not.

Death must be fertile, from this moment on, fertile, at least, as 
     life.
For Man has all to lose: ordered and organized from this day 
     on, must be his nightly
Watch, the locking of his shrine against defilers:
Skillful now indeed must be the thumbers of the record, the 
     compilers:
Sharpened at all hours is the knife.