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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?2 Now Athens weeps her shatter'd fanes, Thy temples, Egypt, strew thy plains; And the proud fabrics Hadrian rear'd From Tibur's vale have disappear'd. We need no prescient sibyl there The doom of grandeur to declare; Each stone, where weeds and ivy climb, Reveals some oracle of Time; Each relic utters Fate's decree, The future as the past shall be.

Halls of the dead! in Tibur's vale, Who now shall tell your lofty tale? Who trace the high patrician's dome, The bard's retreat, the hero's home?