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LVIII.

Taygetus 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,^26[1]

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 past 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.