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.
LIX.
Oh, thus it is with man! A tree, a flower,
While nations perish, still renews its race,
And o’er the fallen records of his power
Spreads in wild pomp, or smiles in fairy grace.