Eleu Loro
Eleu Loro - form Summary
Elegiac Refrain Shapes Fate
This short elegy uses a recurring refrain and simple stanzas to shape its moral contrasts. Each stanza sketches a fate—lover, mourner, traitor—and the repeated Eleu loro
acts like a lullaby-chorus that turns pastoral images into a dirge. The form’s steady rhythm and parallel structure heighten the poem’s inevitability: peaceful resting places are promised to the true and condemnatory violence to the false, underscoring judgment through pattern.
Where shall the lover rest Whom the fates sever From his true maiden’s breast Parted for ever? Where, through groves deep and high Sounds the far billow, Where early violets die Under the willow. Eleu loro Soft shall be his pillow. There through the summer day Cool streams are laving: There, while the tempests sway, Scarce are boughs waving; There thy rest shalt thou take, Parted for ever, Never again to wake Never, O never! Eleu loro Never, O never! Where shall the traitor rest, He, the deceiver, Who could win maiden’s breast, Ruin, and leave her? In the lost battle, Borne down by the flying, Where mingles war’s rattle With groans of the dying; Eleu loro There shall he be lying. Her wing shall the eagle flap O’er the falsehearted; His warm blood the wolf shall lap Ere life be parted. Shame and dishonour sit By his grave ever; Blessing shall hallow it Never, O never! Eleu loro Never, O never!
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