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| WHERE Art’s wide realm in mouldering ruin sleeps, | |
| And Science o’er departed glory weeps— | |
| Where wreathing ivy shrouds in dark array, | |
| The desolating progress of decay— | |
| Where time is ranging with remorseless tread, | 5 |
| Amid the trophies of the mighty dead, | |
| There, Grecia’s genius hovers o’er the scene | |
| Of ruin’d grandeur—glories that have been— | |
| Views the vast wreck of power with kindling eye, | |
| And kneels beside the tomb of Poesy. | 10 |
| Where fame’s proud relics strew her classic ground, | |
| In gloomy majesty she glides around, | |
| Pausing, with rapt devotion, to survey | |
| The prostrate splendors of her early day. | |
| Those ancient courts, where erst with wisdom fraught, | 15 |
| Her senate listen’d, and her sages taught; | |
| Where that bold patriot, firm in virtue’s cause, | |
| The immortal Solon, thunder’d forth his laws! | |
| The temple raised to Theseus’ mighty name— | |
| The storied arch of Hadrian’s deathless fame! | 20 |
| Raises her eye to where, with beam divine, | |
| Apollo blush’d upon the Delphic shrine— | |
| As bow’d that chief, to learn a nation’s fate, | |
| Who gave his royal life, to save the state. | |
| With pride, she seeks Dodona’s sacred grove, | 25 |
| Where towers the temple of imperial Jove, | |
| Frowning, in ruin’d majesty sublime, | |
| The proudest wreck that braves the blast of time! | |
| Shows the broad Stadium, where the gymnic art, | |
| Nerved the young arm, and energized the heart— | 30 |
| Gave a bold race of warriors to her field, | |
| Whose godlike courage was their only shield! | |
| Surveys that grot, where still her olives twine | |
| In wild luxuriance o’er its fallen shrine— | |
| Where Dian’s vestal daughters came to lave | 35 |
| Their snowy bosoms in Ionia’s wave. | |
| All dark and tuneless are those laurel shades, | |
| Which once enshrined Castalia’s classic maids— | |
| For barbarous hands have raised their funeral pyre | |
| And hush’d the breathings of their seraph lyre— | 40 |
| Save when the light of heaven around it plays, | |
| And wakes the hallow’d chant of other days! | |
| Oh! then, ’mid storied mounds, and mouldering urns, | |
| Once more, the flame of inspiration burns! | |
| Here, pilgrim Genius comes to muse around, | 45 |
| To wake one strain o’er consecrated ground! | |
| From prostrate fanes, and altars of decay, | |
| He learns the glory of their former day— | |
| And, in the tender blush of twilight gloom, | |
| He writes the story of some ruin’d tomb; | 50 |
| From dark oblivion snatches many a gem, | |
| To glisten in his own fair diadem. | |
| Immortal Byron! thou, whose courage plann’d | |
| The rescue of that subjugated land— | |
| Oh! hadst thou lived to rear thy giant glaive, | 55 |
| Thou ’dst bid the Christian cross triumphant wave! | |
| Mark’d the pale crescent wave ’mid seas of blood, | |
| And stamp’d proud Grecia’s freedom in the flood. | |
| But, Oh! ’t was fate’s decree thou should’st expire, | |
| Swan-like, amid the breathings of thy lyre— | 60 |
| Even in the sacred light of thine own song— | |
| As sinks the glorious sun amid the throng | |
| Of bright robed clouds, the pageantry of Heaven— | |
| Thy last retiring beam to earth was given. | |
| Where Scio’s isle blushes with Christian gore, | 65 |
| And recreant fiends still yell around her shore; | |
| Where Missolonghi’s bloody plain extends, | |
| ’Mid war’s red blots, Athena’s Queen descends. | |
| Mark, where she comes—in all the pomp of wo— | |
| Darkling around her sable vestments flow— | 70 |
| With throbbing bosom in the tempest bare— | |
| Wild, on the breeze, floats her unwreathed hair, | |
| Though learning’s classic diadem is there. | |
| Where fate’s dark clouds the face of heaven deform— | |
| With steadfast brow—she meets the bursting storm, | 75 |
| Turns to Olympus with imploring eye, | |
| And claims the ægis of her native sky. | |
| Hark! round its base th’ eternal thunders roll, | |
| And Jove’s own lightnings flash from pole to pole— | |
| His voice is there! he bids creation save | 80 |
| Minerva’s “first born,” from a barbarous wave. | |
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