Wife of Asdrubal

Good grief. I surely didn't see that coming. The forsaken wife, drowning in grief and classical references, only to kill her children in the end. The last stanza gives such a terrifying, imaginable scene when it says, "Bright in her hand the lifted dagger gleams,/ Swift from her children's hearts the life-blood streams;/ With frantic laugh she clasps them to the breast." She appears to be sparing them from burning alive, so being stabbed to death would indeed be more humane than that. I'm not sure if this is an allegorical poem for a real person, country, or situation, but if it is purely a story, the entertainment factor makes it sufficient to stand alone.