There, year by year, that secret peril spreads,
Disguised in loveliness, its baleful reign,
And viewless blights o'er many a landscape sheds,
Gay with the riches of the south, in vain,
O'er fairy bowers, and palaces of state,
Passing unseen, to leave them desolate.
And pillared halls, whose airy colonades,
Were formed to echo music's choral tone,
Are silent now, amidst deserted shades,*[1]
Peopled by sculpture's graceful forms alone;
And fountains dash, unheard by lone alcoves,
Neglected temples, and forsaken groves.
And there, where marble nymphs, in beauty gleaming,
'Midst the deep shades of plane and cypress rise,
By wave or grot might Fancy linger, dreaming
Of old Arcadia's woodland deities.—
- ↑
* See Madame de Stael's fine description, in her Corinne, of the Villa Borghese, deserted on account of the Mal'aria.
