LVIII.
Taÿgetus 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,[37]
And a frail shrub survives to bloom o’er Sparta’s grave.