Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79. | | | | Staffa, the Island | | Staffa | | William Sotheby (1757–1833) |
| | | STAFFA, I scaled thy summit hoar, | |
| I passed beneath thy arch gigantic, | |
| Whose pillared cavern swells the roar, | |
| When thunders on thy rocky shore | |
| The roll of the Atlantic. | 5 |
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| That hour the wind forgot to rave, | |
| The surge forgot its motion, | |
| And every pillar in thy cave | |
| Slept in its shadow on the wave, | |
| Unrippled by the ocean. | 10 |
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| Then the past age before me came, | |
| When mid the lightning’s sweep, | |
| Thy isle with its basaltic frame, | |
| And every column wreathed with flame, | |
| Burst from the boiling deep. | 15 |
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| When mid Iona’s wrecks meanwhile | |
| O’er sculptured graves I trod, | |
| Where Time had strewn each mouldering aisle | |
| O’er saints and kings that reared the pile, | |
| I hailed the eternal God: | 20 |
| Yet, Staffa, more I felt his presence in thy cave | |
| Than where Iona’s cross rose o’er the western wave. | | | | |
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