Crowned by consenting nations peerless queen of gaiety:
She laugheth at the wrath of Ocean, she mocketh the fury of Vesuvius,
She spurneth disease and misery and famine, that crowd her sunny streets:
The giddy dance, the merry song, the festal glad procession,
The noonday slumber and the midnight serenade,—all these make up her Life:
Her Life?—and what her Death?—look we to the end of life,—
Solon, and Tellus the Athenian, wisely have ye pointed to the grave.
For behold yon dreary precinct,—those hundreds of stone wells,
A pit for a day, a pit for a day,—a pit to be sealed for a year:
And in the gloom of night, they raise the year-closed lid,—