Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79. | | | | Spain: Sierra Morena | | Sierra Morena | | Lord Byron (1788–1824) |
| | (From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage)
AT every turn Morena’s dusky height | |
| Sustains aloft the battery’s iron load; | |
| And, far as mortal eye can compass sight, | |
| The mountain-howitzer, the broken road, | |
| The bristling palisade, the fosse o’erflowed, | 5 |
| The stationed bands, the never-vacant watch, | |
| The magazine in rocky durance stowed, | |
| The holstered steed beneath the shed of thatch, | |
| The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match, | |
| |
| Portend the deeds to come: but he whose nod | 10 |
| Has tumbled feebler despots from their sway, | |
| A moment pauseth ere he lifts the rod; | |
| A little moment deigneth to delay: | |
| Soon will his legions sweep through these their way; | |
| The West must own the scourger of the world. | 15 |
| Ah, Spain! how sad will be thy reckoning-day, | |
| When soars Gaul’s Vulture, with his wings unfurled, | |
| And thou shalt view thy sons in crowds to Hades hurled! | | | | |
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