Mark in the throng’d Ceramicus, the train Of mourners weeping o’er the martyr’d brave: Proud be the tears devoted to the slain, Holy the amaranth strew’d upon their grave![45] And hark! unrivall’d eloquence proclaims Their deeds, their trophies, with triumphant voice! Hark! Pericles records their honour’d names![46] Sons of the fallen, in their lot rejoice: What hath life brighter than so bright a doom? What power hath fate to soil the garlands of the tomb? LXXIX. Praise to the valiant dead! for them doth art Exhaust her skill, their triumphs bodying forth; Theirs are enshrinèd names, and every heart Shall bear the blazon’d impress of their worth. Bright on the dreams of youth their fame shall rise, Their fields of fight shall epic song record; And, when the voice of battle rends the skies, Their name shall be their country’s rallying word! While fane and column rise august to tell How Athens honours those for her who proudly fell. LXXX. City of Theseus! bursting on the mind, Thus dost thou rise, in all thy glory fled! Thus guarded by the mighty of mankind, Thus hallow’d by the memory of the dead: Alone in beauty and renown--a scene Whose tints are drawn from freedom’s loveliest ray. ’Tis but a vision now--yet thou hast been More than the brightest vision might portray; And every stone, with but a vestige fraught Of thee, hath latent power to wake some lofty thought. LXXXI. Fall’n are thy fabrics, that so oft have rung To choral melodies and tragic lore; Now is the lyre of Sophocles unstrung, The song that hail’d Harmodius peals no more. Thy proud Piræus is a desert strand, Thy stately shrines are mouldering on their hill, Closed are the triumphs of the sculptor’s hand, The magic voice of eloquence is still; Minerva’s veil is rent[47]--her image gone; Silent the sage’s bower--the warrior’s tomb o’erthrown. LXXXII. Yet in decay thine exquisite remains Wondering we view, and silently revere, As traces left on earth’s forsaken plains By vanish’d beings of a nobler sphere! Not all the old magnificence of Rome, All that dominion there hath left to time-- Proud Coliseum, or commanding dome, Triumphal arch, or obelisk sublime, Can bid such reverence o’er the spirit steal, As aught by thee imprest with beauty’s plastic seal. LXXXIII.