Verdure and flowers in summer-bloom may smile,
And ivy-boughs their graceful drapery spread
In green luxuriance o’er the ruin’d pile;
And mantling woodbine veil the wither’d tree;—
And thus it is, fair land! forsaken Greece, with thee.
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.