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THE FUNERAL GENIUS;
AN ANCIENT STATUE.
"Debout, couronné de fleurs, les bras élevés et posés sur sa tête, et le dos appuyé contre un pin, ce génie semble exprimer par son attitude le répos des morts. Les bas-reliefs des tombeaux offrent souvent des figures semblables."—Visconti, Description des Antiques du Musée Royal.
Thou shouldst be look'd on when the starlight falls
Through the blue stillness of the summer-air,
Not by the torch-fire wavering on the walls;
It hath too fitful and too wild a glare!
And thou!—thy rest, the soft, the lovely, seems
To ask light steps, that will not break its dreams.
Flowers are upon thy brow; for so the dead
Were crown'd of old, with pale spring-flowers like these:
Sleep on thine eye hath sunk; yet softly shed
As from the wing of some faint southern breeze:
And the pine-boughs o'ershadow thee with gloom
Which of the grove seems breathing—not the tomb.
