Before the thing that, in the might of death,

Fearful, yet beautiful, amidst them lay—

A sleeper, dreaming not!—a youth with hair

Making a sunny gleam (how sadly fair!)

O’er his cold brow: no shadow of decay

Had touch’d those pale, bright features—yet he wore

A mien of other days, a garb of yore.

Who could unfold that mystery? From the throng

A woman wildly broke; her eye was dim,

As if through many tears, through vigils long,