Dido’s Lament, that melody immortal,
Premiered within a girls’ school’s cloistered walls,
And functions as a chronomobile portal-
Contemporary listeners might forestall

The tragedy by asking what went wrong,
Exactly how the queen of Carthage died-
Did Dido droop to death as in the song,
Or was it star-crossed lover’s suicide?

I like to think the pyre on which she burned
To tell Aeneas “Hi!” was just a ruse,
That through enforced experience was earned,
So later she could do what she would choose.

And in my mind her romances thereafter
Did fill her life with wisdom, joy, and laughter.