Yet many a sad reality is there, That Fancy’s bright illusions cannot veil. Pure laughs the light, and balmy breathes the air, But Slavery’s mien will tell its bitter tale; And there, not Peace, but Desolation, throws Delusive quiet o’er full many a scene-- Deep as the brooding torpor of repose That follows where the earthquake’s track hath been; Or solemn calm on Ocean’s breast that lies, When sinks the storm, and death has hush’d the seamen’s cries. XXIX. Hast thou beheld some sovereign spirit, hurl’d By Fate’s rude tempest from its radiant sphere, Doom’d to resign the homage of a world, For Pity’s deepest sigh and saddest tear? Oh! hast thou watch’d the awful wreck of mind That weareth still a glory in decay? Seen all that dazzles and delights mankind-- Thought, science, genius--to the storm a prey; And o’er the blasted tree, the wither’d ground, Despair’s wild nightshade spread, and darkly flourish round? XXX. So mayst thou gaze, in sad and awe-struck thought, On the deep fall of that yet lovely clime: Such there the ruin Time and Fate have wrought, So changed the bright, the splendid, the sublime. There the proud monuments of Valour’s name, The mighty works Ambition piled on high, The rich remains by Art bequeath’d to Fame-- Grace, beauty, grandeur, strength, and symmetry, Blend in decay; while all that yet is fair Seems only spared to tell how much hath perish’d there! XXXI. There, while around lie mingling in the dust The column’s graceful shaft, with weeds o’er grown, The mouldering torso, the forgotten bust. The warrior’s urn, the altar’s mossy stone-- Amidst the loneliness of shatter’d fanes, Still matchless monuments of other years-- O’er cypress groves or solitary plains, Its eastern form the minaret proudly rears: As on some captive city’s ruin’d wall The victor’s banner waves, exulting o’er its fall. XXXII. Still, where that column of the mosque aspires, Landmark of slavery, towering o’er the waste, There science droops, the Muses hush their lyres And o’er the blooms of fancy and of taste Spreads the chill blight;--as in that orient isle Where the dark upas taints the gale around,[22] Within its precincts not a flower may smile, Nor dew nor sunshine fertilise the ground; Nor wild birds’ music float on zephyr’s breath, But all is silence round, and solitude, and death. XXXIII.