Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79. | | | | Portugal: Lisbon (Lisboa) | | Lisbon | | Luís de Camões (c. 1524–1580) |
| | (From The Lusiad, Book III)
Translated by William Julius Mickle
AND thou, famed Lisboa, whose embattled wall | |
| Rose by the hand that wrought proud Ilion’s fall; | |
| Thou queen of cities, whom the seas obey, | |
| Thy dreaded ramparts owned the hero’s sway. | |
| Far from the north a warlike navy bore | 5 |
| From Elbe, from Rhine, and Albion’s misty shore, | |
| To rescue Salem’s long-polluted shrine; | |
| Their force to great Alonzo’s force they join: | |
| Before Ulysses’ walls the navy rides, | |
| The joyful Tagus laves their pitchy sides. | 10 |
| Five times the moon her empty horns concealed, | |
| Five times her broad effulgence shone revealed, | |
| When, wrapped in clouds of dust, her mural pride | |
| Falls thundering,—black the smoking breach yawns wide. | |
| As when the imprisoned waters burst the mounds, | 15 |
| And roar, wide sweeping, o’er the cultured grounds; | |
| Nor cot nor fold withstand their furious course; | |
| So headlong rushed along the hero’s force. | |
| The thirst of vengeance the assailant’s fires, | |
| The madness of despair the Moors inspires; | 20 |
| Each lane, each street, resounds the conflict’s roar, | |
| And every threshold reeks with tepid gore. | |
| Thus fell the city, whose unconquered towers | |
| Defied of old the banded Gothic powers, | |
| Whose hardened nerves in rigorous climates trained, | 25 |
| The savage courage of their souls sustained; | |
| Before whose sword the sons of Ebro fled, | |
| And Tagus trembled in his oozy bed. | | | | |
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