Epigram

Artwork: Camille Claudel, Vertumnus and Pomona, 1905, Musée Rodin, Paris, France

The short, dynamic poetic form called epigrams, was popular in the Hellenistic period in the 1st century BC, and derives from the Greek ἐπίγραμμα—epígramma, which translates as "inscription", and from ἐπιγράφειν—epigráphein, meaning "to write on, to inscribe". I came across this particularly beautiful epigram by Meleager of Gadara, whose love poems were often in the form of epigrams:

Within my heart Love himself

fashioned sweet-spoken Heliodora,

soul of my soul.