Deem’d a meet offering for celestial powers.
The suppliant’s hand its holy branches bore;[38]
They waved around the Olympic victor’s head;
And, sanctified by many a rite of yore,
Its leaves the Spartan’s honour’d bier o’erspread.
Those rites have vanish’d—but o’er vale and hill
Its fruitful groves arise, revered and hallow’d still.[39]
LXI.
Where now thy shrines, Eleusis! where thy fane
Of fearful visions, mysteries wild and high?