Not that decay's finger had yet really assailed it; but one of the peculiar properties of the preservative used by Doctor Pormont, is its pervading sepulchral odour.
They reached Rome; and the consummation of their task drew nigh.
Pass we over the husband's last earthly farewell. Pass we over that subduing scene, in which Henry assisted George to sever long ringlets, and rob the cold finger, of affection's dearest pledge.
Alas! these might be retained as the legacy of love.
They were useless as love's memento. Memory, the faithful mirror, forbade the relic gatherer ever to forget!
Would you know where Acmé reposes?
A beautiful burial ground looks towards Rome. It is on a gentle declivity leaning to the south-east, and situated between Mount Aventine and the Monte Testaccio.
Its avenue is lined with high bushes of marsh roses; and the cemetery itself, is divided into three rude and impressive terraces.
There sleeps--in a modest nook, surmounted by the wall-flower, and by creeping ivy, and by many-coloured shrubs, and by one simple yellow flower, of very peculiar and rare fragrance; a type, as the author of these pages deemed, of the wonderful etherialised genius of the man--there sleeps, as posterity will judge him, the first of the poets of the age we live in--Percy Bysshe Shelley! There too, moulders that wonderful boy author--John Keats.
Who can pass his grave, and read that bitter inscription, dictated on his deathbed, by the heart-broken enthusiast, without the liveliest emotion?