LXXXVII.

Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild; Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, Thine olive ripe as when Minerva[192] smiled, And still his honied wealth Hymettus[193] yields; There the blithe Bee his fragrant fortress builds, The free-born wanderer of thy mountain-air; Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare:[fv] Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.

LXXXVIII.[194]

Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground; No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, But one vast realm of Wonder spreads around, And all the Muse's tales seem truly told, Till the sense aches with gazing to behold The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon; Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone: Age shakes Athenæ's tower, but spares gray Marathon.[195]