The Statue of Lorenzo de’ Medici

Mark me how still I am!—The sound of feet
Unnumbered echoing through this vaulted hall,
Or voices harsh, on me unheeded fall,
Placed high in my memorial niche and seat,
In cold and marble meditation meet
Among proud tombs and pomp funereal
Of rich sarcophagi and sculptured wall,—
In death’s elaborate elect retreat.
I was a Prince,—this monument was wrought
That I in honor might eternal stand;
In vain, subdued by Buonarroti’s hand,
The conscious stone is pregnant with his thought;
He to this brooding rock his fame devised,
And he, not I, is here immortalized.