The sad night wind, sighing o'er sea and strand,
Haunts the cold marble where Napoleon sleeps;
O'er Charlemagne's bones, far in the northern land,
A vigil through the centuries it keeps;

O'er Grecian kings its plaintive music sweeps;
Proud Philip's grave is by its dark wings fanned,
And round old Pharaoh's (deep in desert sand
When the grim Sphinx leers at the stars) it creeps

Yet weary it is of this chill, spectral gloom;
For mouldering grandeurs it can have no care.
Rich mausoleums in their granite doom
It fain would leave, and wander on elsewhere,
To cool the violets upon Gautier's tomb,
And lull the long grass over Baudelaire.