Uploaded April 2013 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

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This poem is the subject of an article about Literary Friendships, by Alicia Stallings
poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/04/literary-friendships-part-ii

The first statue is Socrates, the second one is Callimachus.

William Cory (1823 --1892)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Johnson_Cory

Very little is known about Heraclitus.
He wasn't the philosopher of the same name,
who died two centuries before this poem was written.

He was Heraclitus of Halicarnassus.
Here's the only poem of his that survives:
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Here is a freshly dug grave,
And on the stone lie withered flowers.
Wayfarer, read what is written
And find out whose remains lie here.
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"Stranger, know that I am Aretemias,
I came from Cnidus, I was the wife of Euphro
I did not escape labour but bore him twins:
One I left behind to help him when he is old
The other I took with me to the grave
To remind me of him. "

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept as I remembered how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of gray ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.