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* * * * * DESOLATE Athens! though thy gods are fled, | |
| Thy temples silent, and thy glory dead, | |
| Though all thou hadst of beautiful and brave | |
| Sleep in the tomb, or moulder in the wave, | |
| Though power and praise forsake thee, and forget, | 5 |
| Desolate Athens, thou art lovely yet! | |
| Around thy walls, in every wood and vale, | |
| Thine own sweet bird, the lonely nightingale, | |
| Still makes her home; and, when the moonlight hour | |
| Flings its soft magic over brake and bower, | 10 |
| Murmurs her sorrows from her ivy shrine, | |
| Or the thick foliage of the deathless vine. | |
| Where erst Megæra chose her fearful crown, | |
| The bright narcissus hangs his clusters down; | |
| And the gay crocus decks with glittering dew | 15 |
| The yellow radiance of his golden hue. | |
| Still thine own olive haunts its native earth, | |
| Green, as when Pallas smiled upon its birth; | |
| And still Cephisus pours his sleepless tide, | |
| So clear and calm, along the meadow side, | 20 |
| That you may gaze long hours upon the stream, | |
| And dream at last the poet’s witching dream, | |
| That the sweet Muses in the neighboring bowers | |
| Sweep their wild harps, and wreathe their odorous flowers, | |
| And laughing Venus o’er the level plains | 25 |
| Waves her light lash and shakes her gilded reins. | |
| How terrible is Time! his solemn years, | |
| The tombs of all our hopes and all our fears, | |
| In silent horror roll! the gorgeous throne, | |
| The pillared arch, the monumental stone, | 30 |
| Melt in swift ruin; and of mighty climes, | |
| Where Fame told tales of virtues and of crimes, | |
| Where Wisdom taught, and Valor woke to strife, | |
| And Art’s creations breathed their mimic life, | |
| And the young poet when the stars shone high | 35 |
| Drank the deep rapture of the quiet sky, | |
| Naught now remains but Nature’s placid scene, | |
| Heaven’s deathless blue and earth’s eternal green, | |
| The showers that fall on palaces and graves, | |
| The suns that shine for freemen and for slaves: | 40 |
| Science may sleep in ruin, man in shame, | |
| But Nature lives, still lovely, still the same! | |
| The rock, the river,—these have no decay! | |
| The city and its masters,—where are they? | |
| Go forth, and wander through the cold remains | 45 |
| Of fallen statues and of tottering fanes, | |
| Seek the loved haunts of poet and of sage, | |
| The gay palæstra and the gaudy stage! | |
| What signs are there? a solitary stone, | |
| A shattered capital with grass o’ergrown, | 50 |
| A mouldering frieze, half hid in ancient dust, | |
| A thistle springing o’er a nameless bust; | |
| Yet this was Athens! still a holy spell | |
| Breathes in the dome, and wanders in the dell, | |
| And vanished times and wondrous forms appear, | 55 |
| And sudden echoes charm the waking ear: | |
| Decay itself is drest in glory’s gloom, | |
| For every hillock is a hero’s tomb, | |
| And every breeze to Fancy’s slumber brings | |
| The mighty rushing of a spirit’s wings. | 60 |
| O yes! where glory such as thine hath been, | |
| Wisdom and Sorrow linger round the scene; | |
| And where the hues of faded splendor sleep, | |
| Age kneels to moralize, and Youth to weep! * * * * * | |
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