And say, what marvel, in those early days, While yet the light of heaven-born truth was not, If man around him cast a fearful gaze, Peopling with shadowy powers each dell and grot? Awful is nature in her savage forms, Her solemn voice commanding in its might, And mystery then was in the rush of storms, The gloom of woods, the majesty of night; And mortals heard Fate’s language in the blast, And rear’d your forest-shrines, ye phantoms of the past! LXIV. Then through the foliage not a breeze might sigh But with prophetic sound--a waving tree, A meteor flashing o’er the summer sky, A bird’s wild flight reveal’d the things to be. All spoke of unseen natures, and convey’d Their inspiration; still they hover’d round, Hallow’d the temple, whisper’d through the shade, Pervaded loneliness, gave soul to sound; Of them the fount, the forest, murmur’d still, Their voice was in the stream, their footstep on the hill. LXV. Now is the train of Superstition flown! Unearthly beings walk on earth no more; The deep wind swells with no portentous tone, The rustling wood breathes no fatidic lore. Fled are the phantoms of Livadia’s cave, There dwell no shadows, but of crag and steep; Fount of Oblivion! in thy gushing wave,[41] That murmurs nigh, those powers of terror sleep. Oh that such dreams alone had fled that clime! But Greece is changed in all that could be changed by time! LXVI. Her skies are those whence many a mighty bard Caught inspiration, glorious as their beams; Her hills the same that heroes died to guard, Her vales, that foster’d Art’s divinest dreams! But that bright spirit o’er the land that shone, And all around pervading influence pour’d, That lent the harp of Æschylus its tone, And proudly hallow’d Lacedæmon’s sword, And guided Phidias o’er the yielding stone, With them its ardours lived--with them its light is flown. LXVII. Thebes, Corinth, Argos!--ye renown’d of old, Where are your chiefs of high romantic name? How soon the tale of ages may be told! A page, a verse, records the fall of fame, The work of centuries. We gaze on you, O cities! once the glorious and the free, The lofty tales that charm’d our youth renew, And wondering ask, if these their scenes could be? Search for the classic fane, the regal tomb, And find the mosque alone--a record of their doom! LXVIII.