I will spare you Friedrich Schiller's original text
(unless someone insists on asking for it) to
Nänie, set to music by Brahms.

Here with much help from the Wikipedia article
is a modest attempt at an English translation.


Even beauty must die! That which subjugates men and Gods alike,
Moves not the steely heart of the Stygian God Zeus.

Only once did love come to soften the Lord of the Shadows,
And just at the threshold, sternly, he called back his gift.

Nor did Aphrodite stanch the bleeding wounds of that fair youth,
Torn savagely by the boar in his delicate body.

Neither was the godlike hero rescued by his immortal mother,
When he, at the Scaean gate, falling, fulfilled his fate.

But she rises from the sea with all the daughters of Nereus,
Raising a lament over her glorious son.

Behold! The gods weep, all the goddesses weep,
That the beautiful perishes, that perfection itself dies.

But a lament in the mouth of those who loved the departed one is a noble thing,
For that which is ordinary goes down to Orcus in silence.



That's Schiller for you, and Brahms has the last word in his interpretation,
going back to the penultimate line with which to close the piece:

"Auch ein Klaglied zu sein im Mund der Geliebten ist herrlich."

The music is ineffable, it moves me to tears.