XXIII.

"O ye wild groves, O where is now your bloom!" (The Muse interprets thus his tender thought) "Your flowers, your verdure, and your balmy gloom, Of late so grateful in the hour of drought! Why do the birds, that song and rapture brought To all your bowers, their mansions now forsake? Ah! why has fickle chance this ruin wrought? For now the storm howls mournful through the brake, And the dead foliage flies in many a shapeless flake.