Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Americas: Vol. XXX. 1876–79. | | | | Central America: Copan, Guatemala | | Copan | | Joaquin Miller (1837–1913) |
| | (From With Walker in Nicaragua)
FAR in the wildest quinine wood | |
| We found a city old,—so old, | |
| Its very walls were turned to mould, | |
| And stately trees upon them stood. | |
| No history has mentioned it, | 5 |
| No map has given it a place; | |
| The last dim trace of tribe and race,— | |
| The world’s forgetfulness is fit. | |
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| It held one structure grand and mossed, | |
| Mighty as any castle sung, | 10 |
| And old when oldest Ind was young, | |
| With threshold Christian never crossed; | |
| A temple builded to the sun, | |
| Along whose sombre altar-stone | |
| Brown bleeding virgins had been strown | 15 |
| Like leaves, when leaves are crisp and dun, | |
| In ages ere the Sphinx was born, | |
| Or Babylon had birth or morn. | | | | |
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