INSCRIPTION.
Lithe ivy, let thy gliding foliage shade
This urn, where Shelley’s sacred dust is laid,
Whose fire was quenched beneath the angry sea,
That laves the sunny shores of Italy!
The Elements did moan around his bier.
In him they lost their best interpreter—
For his most subtile, sympathizing frame
Was as a sweet melodious instrument,
Through all whose pores and million channels went
The Universe into his heart and brain
In musical influxes, that ebbed amain
From out his lips, in verse of power to tame
A tiger’s heart, or suage an angel’s pain.
Through his well-jointed reeds the circling gyres
Of planets poured in song their soft desires,
And glad ovations, while their vernal dreams
The leaves did whisper, and the clouds and streams
And winds their fluent exultations pour,
With sky-pavilioned ocean’s organ-roar.