VIII.
Where soft the sunbeams play, the zephyrs blow,
'Tis hard to deem that misery can be nigh;
Where the clear heavens in blue transparence glow,
Life should be calm and cloudless as the sky;
—Yet o'er the low, dark dwellings of the dead,
Verdure and flowers in summer-bloom may smile,
And ivy-boughs their graceful drapery spread
In green luxuriance o'er the ruined pile;
And mantling woodbine veils the withered tree,—
IX.
For all the loveliness, and light, and bloom,
That yet are thine, surviving many a storm,
Are but as heaven's warm radiance on the tomb,
The rose's blush that masks the canker-worm:—
And thou art desolate—thy morn hath past
So dazzling in the splendour of its way,
That the dark shades the night hath o'er thee cast
Throw tenfold gloom around thy deep decay.
Once proud in freedom, still in ruin fair,
