XXXII.
Still, where that column of the mosque aspires,
Landmark of slavery, towering o’er the waste,
There science droops, the Muses hush their lyres
And o’er the blooms of fancy and of taste
Spreads the chill blight;—as in that orient isle
Where the dark upas taints the gale around,[22]
Within its precincts not a flower may smile,
Nor dew nor sunshine fertilise the ground;
Nor wild birds’ music float on zephyr’s breath,
But all is silence round, and solitude, and death.