By strangers’ coasts and waters, many days at sea,
I came here for the rites of your unworlding,
Bringing for you, the dead, these last gifts of the living
And my words — vain sounds for the man of dust.
Alas, my brother,
You have been taken from me. You have been taken from me
And by cold hands turned to shadow, and my pain.
Here are the foods of the old ceremony appointed
Long ago for the starvelings under the earth.
Take them. Your brother’s tears have made them wet. And take
Into eternity my hail and my farewell.

by Gaius Valerius Catullus

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