When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men, Then may'st thou be restored; but not till then. A thousand years scarce serve to form a state; An hour may lay it in the dust and when Can man its shatter'd splendour renovate, Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate? LXXXV. And yet how lovely in thine age of wo, Land of lost gods and godlike men! art thou! Thy vales of ever-green, thy hills of snow (37) Proclaim thee Nature's varied favourite now: Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface bow, Commingling slowly with heroic earth, Broke by the share of every rustic plough: So perish monuments of mortal birth, So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth; LXXXVI. Save where some solitary column mourns Above its prostrate brethren of the cave; (38) Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave; Save o'er some warrior's half-forgotten grave, Where the gray stones and unmolested grass Ages, but not oblivion, feebly brave, While strangers only not regardless pass, Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sigh "Alas!" LXXXVII. Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild; Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, LXXXVIII. Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground; No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, And all the Muse's tales seem truly told, Till the sense aches with gazing to behold The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon : Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold Defies the power which crush'd thy temples gone; Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon. LXXXIX. The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same; When Marathon became a magic word; (39) The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's ca reer. XC. The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow; The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger! spurns around. XCI. Yet to the remnants of thy splendour past Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied throng; Long shall the voyager, with th' Ionian blast, Hail the bright clime of battle and of song; Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore; Boast of the aged! lesson of the young! Which sages venerate and bards adore, As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore. XCII. The parted bosom clings to wonted home, If aught that's kindred cheer the welcome hearth; He that is lonely hither let him roam, And gaze complacent on congenial earth. Greece is no lightsome land of social mirth; But he whom sadness sootheth may abide, And scarce regret the region of his birth, When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side, Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian died. XCIII. Let such approach this consecrated land, Not for such purpose were these altars placed: By every honest joy of love and life endear'd! XCIV. For thee, who thus in too protracted song Since cold each kinder heart that might approve, And none are left to please when none are left to love. XCV. Thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one! see Would they had never been, or were to come! Would he had ne'er return'd to find fresh cause to roam! XCVI. Oh! ever loving, lovely, and beloved! How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past, The parent, friend, and now the more than friend: And grief with grief continuing still to blend, Hath snatch'd the little joy that life had yet to lend. XCVII. Then must I plunge again into the crowd, To feign the pleasure or conceal the pique; XCVIII. What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now. Before the Chastener humbly let me bow, O'er hearts divided and o'er hopes destroy'd: Roll on, vain days! full reckless may ye flow, Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoy'd, And with the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloy'd. END OF CANTO IL |