From the high mountain wall,
That fall and flash and fleet,
With silver feet.

Only a laurel tree
Shall guard the grave of me;
Only Apollo's bough
Shall shade me now!


Far other has been thy sepulchre: not in the free air, among the
field flowers, but in thy priory of Saint Cosme, with marble for a
monument, and no green grass to cover thee. Restless wert thou in
thy life; thy dust was not to be restful in thy death. The
Huguenots, ces nouveaux Chretiens qui la France ont pillee,
destroyed thy tomb, and the warning of the later monument,


ABI, NEFASTE, QUAM CALCUS HUMU< SACRA EST,


has not scared away malicious men. The storm that passed over
France a hundred years ago, more terrible than the religious wars
that thou didst weep for, has swept the column from the tomb. The
marble was broken by violent hands, and the shattered sepulchre of
the Prince of Poets gained a dusty hospitality from the museum of a
country town. Better had been the laurel of thy desire, the
creeping vine, and the ivy tree.

Scarce more fortunate, for long, than thy monument was thy memory.