LXXXV. snow And yet how lovely in thine age of woe, LXXXVI. 38 Save where some solitary column mourns Above its prostrate brethren of the cave; Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave; Save o'er some warrior's half-forgotten grave, Where the grey stones and unmolested grass Ages, but not oblivion, feebly brave; While strangers only not regardless pass, Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sigh "Alas!” LXXXVII. Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild; LXXXVIII. Where'er we tread 't is haunted, holy ground; No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, And all the muse's tales seem truly told. Till the sense aches with gazing to behold The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon; Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold Defies the power which crush'd thy temples gone: Age shakes Athena's towers, but spares gray Marathon. LXXXIX. The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same; XC. 39 The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow; The rifled urn, the violated mound, The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger! spurns around. XCI. Yet to the remnants of thy splendour past XCII. The parted bosom clings to wonted home, XCIII. Let such approach this consecrated land, pass in peace along the magic waste; So may our country's name be undisgraced, So mayst thou prosper where thy youth was rear'd, By every honest joy of love and life endear'd! XCIV. For thee, who thus in too protracted song Ill To such resign the strife for fading baysmay such contest now the spirit move Which heeds nor keen reproach nor partial praise; Since cold each kinder heart that might approve, And none are left to please when none are left to love. XCV. Thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one! Nor staid to welcome here thy wanderer home, Who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall see Would they had never been, or were to come! Would he had ne'er return'd to find fresh cause to roam! XCVI. Oh! ever loving, lovely, and beloved! How selfish sorrow ponders on the past, And clings to thoughts now better far removed! But time shall tear thy shadow from me last. All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death! thou hast; The parent, friend, and now the more than friend : Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast, And grief with grief continuing still to blend, Hath snatch'd the little joy that life had yet to lend. XCVII. Then must I plunge again into the crowd, And follow all that peace disdains to seek? Where revel calls, and laughter, vainly loud, False to the heart, distorts the hollow cheek, To leave the flagging spirit doubly weak : Still o'er the features, which perforce they cheer, To feign the pleasure or conceal the pique ; Smiles form the channel of a future tear, Or raise the writhing lip with ill-dissembled sneer. XCVIII. What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now. Before the Chastener humbly let me bow, O'er hearts divided and o'er hopes destroy'd: Roll on, vain days! full reckless may ye flow, Since time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoy'd, And with the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloy'd. 000€ Part of the Acropolis was destroyed by the explosion of a magazine during the Venetian siege. Note 2. Stanza i. But worse than steel, and flame, and ages slow, Is the dread sceptre and dominion dire Of men who never felt the sacred glow That thoughts of thee and thine on polish'd breasts bestow. We can all feel, or imagine, the regret with which the ruins of cities, once the capital of empires, are beheld; the reflections suggested by such objects are too trite to require recapitulation. But never did the littleness of man, and the vanity of his very best virtues, of patriotism to exalt, and of valour to defend his country, appear more conspicuous than in the record of what Athens was, and in the certainty of what she now is. This theatre of contention between mighty factious, of the struggles of orators, the exaltation and deposition of tyrants, the triumph and punishment of generals, is now become a scene of petty intrigue and perpetual disturbance, between the bickering agents of certain British nobility and gentry. "The wild foxes, the owls, and serpents in the ruins of Babylon," were surely less degrading than such inhabitants. The Turks have the plea of conquest for their tyranny, and the Greeks have only suffered the fortune of war, incidental to the bravest; but how are the mighty fallen, when two painters contest the privilege of plundering the Parthenon, and triumph in turn according to the tenor of each succeeding firman! Sylla could but punish, Philip subdue, and Xerxes burn Athens; but it remained for the paitry antiquarian, and his despicable agents, to render her contemptible as himself and his pursuits. The Parthenon, before its destruction in part, by fire, during the Venetian siege, had been a temple, a church, and a mosque. In each point of view it is an object of regard; it changed its worshippers; but still it was a place of worship thrice sacred to devotion: its violation is a triple sacrilege. But "Man, vain man, Drest in a little brief authority, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As make the angels weep." Note 3. Stanza v. Far on the solitary shore he sleeps. It was not always the custom of the Greeks to burn their dead; the greater Ajax in particular was interred entire. Almost all the chiefs became gods after their decease; and he was indeed neglected who had not annual games near his tomb, or festivals in honour of his memory by his countrymen, as Achilles, Brasidas, &c., and at last even Antinous, whose death was as heroic as his life was infamous. Note 4. Stanza x. Here, son of Saturn! was thy fav'rite throne. The temple of Jupiter Olympius, of which sixteen columns entirely of marble yet survive originally there were 150. These columns, however, are by many supposed to have belonged to the Pantheon. |