Sarcophagi, urns, were all covered with lifelike scenes, <br />fauns dancing with girls from a Bacchanalian choir, <br />paired-off, goat-footed creatures puffing their cheeks, <br />forcing ear-splitting notes from the blaring horns. <br />Cymbals and drumbeats, the marble is seen and is heard. <br />How delightful the fruit in the beaks of fluttering birds! <br />No startling noise can scare them, or scare away love, <br />Amor, whose torch waves more gladly in this happy throng. <br />So fullness overcomes death, and the ashes within <br />seem still, in their silent house, to feel love’s delight. <br />So may the Poet’s sarcophagus be adorned, <br />with this book the writer has filled with the beauty of life.<br /><br />Johann Wolfgang von Goethe<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/venetian-epigrams-i/
