Acanthus-leaves the marble hide

They once adorn’d in sculptured pride;

And nature hath resumed her throne

O’er the vast works of ages flown.

Was it for this that many a pile,

Pride of Ilissus and of Nile,

To Anio’s banks the image lent

Of each imperial monument?[105]

Now Athens weeps her shatter’d fanes,

Thy temples, Egypt, strew thy plains;