With melting wax and loosened strings
   Sunk hapless Icarus on unfaithful wings;
Headlong he rushed through the affrighted air,
   With limbs distorted and dishevelled hair;
His scattered plumage danced upon the wave,
   And sorrowing Nereids decked his watery grave;
O'er his pale corpse their pearly sea-flowers shed,
   And strewed with crimson moss his marble bed;
Struck in their coral towers the passing bell,
   And wide in ocean tolled his echoing knell.