O Maria Felicia! the Painter and Bard, <br />Behind them in dying leave undying heirs, <br />The night of oblivion their memory spares, <br />And their great eager souls, other action debarred, <br />Against Death, against Time, having valiantly warr'd, <br />Though struck down in the strife claim its trophies as theirs. <br />In the iron engraved, one his thought leaves enshrin'd; <br />With a golden sweet cadence another's entwin'd, <br />Makes for ever all those who shall hear it his friends; <br />Though he died, on the canvas lives Raphael's mind, <br />And from death's darkest doom till this world of ours ends, <br />The mother-clasp'd Infant, his glory defends. <br />As the lamp guards the flame, so the bare marble halls <br />Of the Parthenon, keep in their desolate space, <br />The memory of Phidias enshrin'd in their walls; <br />And Praxiteles' child, the young Venus, yet calls <br />From the altar where smiling she still holds her place, <br />The centuries vanquish'd, to worship her grace. <br /> <br />Thus from Age after Age while new life they receive <br />To rest at God's feet, the old glories are gone, <br />And the accents of Genius their echoes still weave <br />With the great human voice till their speech is but one. <br />While for thee—dead but yesterday—fame does but leave <br />A cross in the dim chapel's darkness alone. <br />A Cross, and Oblivion, and Silence, and Death, <br />Hark! the wind's softest sob; hark! the breeze's deep breath; <br />Hark! the fisher-boy singing his way o'er the plain, <br />Of thy glory, thy hopes, thy young beauty's bright wreath, <br />Not a trace—not a sigh—not an echo remain!<br /><br />Frances Anne Kemble<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/translation-from-alfred-de-musset-s-ode-to-malibran/
