Taÿgetus still lifts his awful brow High o’er the mouldering city of the dead, Sternly sublime; while o’er his robe of snow Heaven’s floating tints their warm suffusions spread. And yet his rippling wave Eurotas leads By tombs and ruins o’er the silent plain; While, whispering there, his own wild graceful reeds Rise as of old, when hail’d by classic strain; There the rose-laurels still in beauty wave,[37] And a frail shrub survives to bloom o’er Sparta’s grave. LIX. Oh, thus it is with man! A tree, a flower, While nations perish, still renews its race, And o’er the fallen records of his power Spreads in wild pomp, or smiles in fairy grace. The laurel shoots when those have pass’d away, Once rivals for its crown, the brave, the free; The rose is flourishing o’er beauty’s clay, The myrtle blows when love hath ceased to be; Green waves the bay when song and bard are fled, And all that round us blooms is blooming o’er the dead. LX. And still the olive spreads its foliage round Morea’s fallen sanctuaries and towers. Once its green boughs Minerva’s votaries crown’d, Deem’d a meet offering for celestial powers. The suppliant’s hand its holy branches bore;[38] They waved around the Olympic victor’s head; And, sanctified by many a rite of yore, Its leaves the Spartan’s honour’d bier o’erspread. Those rites have vanish’d--but o’er vale and hill Its fruitful groves arise, revered and hallow’d still.[39] LXI. Where now thy shrines, Eleusis! where thy fane Of fearful visions, mysteries wild and high? The pomp of rites, the sacrificial train, The long procession’s awful pageantry? Quench’d is the torch of Ceres[40]--all around Decay hath spread the stillness of her reign; There never more shall choral hymns resound O’er the hush’d earth and solitary main, Whose wave from Salamis deserted flows, To bathe a silent shore of desolate repose. LXII. And oh, ye secret and terrific powers! Dark oracles! in depth of groves that dwelt, How are they sunk, the altars of your bowers, Where Superstition trembled as she knelt! Ye, the unknown, the viewless ones! that made The elements your voice, the wind and wave; Spirits! whose influence darken’d many a shade, Mysterious visitants of fount and cave! How long your power the awe-struck nations sway’d, How long earth dreamt of you, and shudderingly obey’d! LXIII.