In vain thy tale these thoughtful numbers chime,
Since trac’d in blood upon the scroll of time.
Cease then the song, and drop the tear instead,
O’er the still slumbers of the lovely dead—
Heave from the breast the unaffected sigh,
Where spreads her name, and where her ashes lie.
For when from art the world shall cease to know,
Afflicted Beauty’s all-surviving woe—
When poet’s verse and sculptor’s shaft decay,
Time o’er the wreck the story shall display,