Go, seek proud Sparta’s monuments and fanes!
In scatter’d fragments o’er the vale they lie;
Of all they were not e’en enough remains
To lend their fall a mournful majesty.[35]
Birth-place of those whose names we first revered
In song and story—temple of the free!
O thou, the stern, the haughty, and the fear’d,
Are such thy relics, and can this be thee?
Thou shouldst have left a giant wreck behind,
And e’en in ruin claim’d the wonder of mankind.