Before the funeral biers, all weeping sad, Her daughters stood, in vests of sable clad. When one surprised, and stung with sudden smart, In vain attempts to draw the sticking dart; But to grim death her blooming youth resigns, And o’er her brother’s corpse her dying head reclines; This, to assuage her mother’s anguish tries, And, silenced in the pious action, dies; Shot by a secret arrow, wing’d with death, Her falt’ring lips but only gasp’d for breath. One, on her dying sister, breathes her last; Vainly in flight another’s hopes are placed; This, hiding from her fate, a shelter seeks; That trembling stands, and fills the air with shrieks And all in vain; for now all six had found Their way to death, each by a diff’rent wound. The last, with eager care, the mother veil’d, Behind her spreading mantle close conceal’d, And with her body guarded, as a shield. “Only for this, this youngest, I implore, Grant me this one request, I ask no more; O grant me this!” she passionately cries: But, while she speaks, the destined virgin dies.