LIII.

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.