Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Americas: Vol. XXX. 1876–79. | | | | Introductory to South America | | South America | | Nicholas Michell (1807–1880) |
| | (From Ruins of Many Lands)
O LAND of wonders! full of all that ’s fair, | |
| Sublime, and beautiful, in earth and air, | |
| As thus, thou new-found world! from main to main, | |
| We sweep, with Fancy’s eye, vast hill and plain, | |
| On every side still countless ruins start, | 5 |
| To trace whose grandeur mocks the poet’s art. | |
| From far Magellan’s Straits to rich Peru, | |
| Where Cuzco’s palaces the desert strew; | |
| Along the Andes piled, where modern man | |
| Hath rarely climbed the awful scenes to scan; | 10 |
| From Amazon and Plata’s sun-bright streams, | |
| To Northern woods where scarcely daylight gleams; | |
| Thence to the Western lakes, and mountain peaks, | |
| Where, in his cloud-rocked home, the eagle shrieks; | |
| Relics of men unknown, and times of old, | 15 |
| Raising our awe, our wonder, we behold. | |
| Mound, stately pyramid, and pictured wall, | |
| That Asia’s creed and Egypt’s art recall; | |
| Embattled towers, with ivy-banners gay, | |
| And shrines that reptiles halve with grim Decay; | 20 |
| These nameless wrecks, to darkness long consigned, | |
| Prompt to strange thought the curious, musing mind; | |
| When built? and who their founders?—patient lore | |
| To solve the question fails, the task gives o’er; | |
| E’en daring Fancy scarce attempts to raise | 25 |
| The shadowy veil of long-departed days. | | | | |
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