The story
From the poem “The Ballad of Dead Ladies” by the English poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) (see the quotation below), an 1869 translation of the line “Mais où sont les neiges d’antan” from “Ballade des dames du temps jadis” (“Ballade of Ladies of Time Gone By”, written 1461) by the French poet François Villon (c. 1431 – p. 1463).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.