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MODERN GREECE.
31


LX.

And still the olive spreads its foliage round
Morea's fallen sanctuaries and towers,
Once its green boughs Minerva's votaries crown'd,
Deem'd a meet offering for celestial powers.
The suppliant's hand its holy branches bore;27
They waved around th' Olympic victor's head;
And, sanctified by many a rite of yore,
Its leaves the Spartan's honour'd bier o'erspread:
Those rites have vanish'd—but o'er vale and hill

Its fruitful groves arise, revered and hallow'd still.28


LXI.

Where now thy shrines, Eleusis! where thy fane
Of fearful visions, mysteries wild and high?
The pomp of rites, the sacrificial train,
The long procession's awful pageantry?
Quench'd is the torch of Ceres29—all around
Decay hath spread the stillness of her reign,
There never more shall choral hymns resound,
O'er the hush'd earth and solitary main;
Whose wave from Salamis deserted flows,

To bathe a silent shore of desolate repose.
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