[ Someone sings in the street below] 

       Fair-fleeting Youth wends ever to the West,     

       He, like the sun, too soon must sink to rest.     

       Stars of Remorse, fast-following on his track,     

       Moon of Old-Age, can nothing turn ye back f     

       Ah, soon the golden Day'll have spent his breath!     

       Then comes the drear, eventless Night of Death     

       When Youth, no longer young, all joys must lack.     

 [Leonardo da Vinci speaks] 

       "Then comes the drear, eventless Night of Death!"     

  

       'Tis true, for who in Tuscany to-day     

       Dares breathe the Medicean name aloud?     

       When a man dies, the watchers by the bed     

       Close down his eye-lids, so is he once dead;     

       Twice dead is he whose mem'ry men dang down     

       To dark oblivion when his soul is fled.     

       Florence forgets her singer, but his song     

       Still echoes through her streets on autumn nights,     

       And pausing at the door of some old friend,     

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