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* * * * * FULL in the centre, towering through the storm, | |
| See cloudy Taurus lift his rugged form,— | |
| Monarch of mountains! nature’s awful throne, | |
| Where grandeur frowns in terrors all his own; | |
| Deep rooted there unnumbered cedars throw | 5 |
| Their giant shadows on the plains below; | |
| There loudly gushing from the mountain’s side | |
| Euphrates rolls his dark and rapid tide, | |
| Then far beneath glides silently away | |
| Through groves of palm and champaigns ever gay. | 10 |
| But as these scenes of sunny calm delight | |
| Recede at length and vanish from the sight, | |
| What barren solitudes of scorching sand | |
| Deform and desolate the fainting land! | |
| No freshening breeze revives the lifeless air, | 15 |
| No living waters sweetly murmur there, | |
| Dry fevers kindle pestilential fires, | |
| All nature droops, and withered life expires! | |
| But deep embosomed in that sandy plain, | |
| Like distant isles emerging from the main, | 20 |
| A radiant spot with loveliest beauty crowned | |
| Once bloomed in contrast with the scenes around, | |
| By nature’s lavish hand profusely graced, | |
| The blessed Eden of the joyless waste. | |
| On every side luxuriant palm-trees grew, | 25 |
| And hence its name the rising city drew, | |
| And though their loveliness has passed away, | |
| The name still lives and triumphs o’er decay. | |
| Two sheltering hills precipitously swell | |
| On either hand, and form a narrow dell: | 30 |
| Thence to the east with undulating bend | |
| Wide and more wide their spreading arms extend, | |
| Then sink at last with slow retiring sweep, | |
| Like distant headlands sloping to the deep. | |
| Outstretched within upon the silent plains | 35 |
| Lies the sad wreck of Tadmor’s last remains; | |
| Outliving still, through each succeeding age, | |
| The tempest’s fury, and the bigot’s rage. | |
| He wants no written record who surveys | |
| But one short hour this scene of other days: | 40 |
| These mouldering piles, that sink in slow decay, | |
| In stronger characters the tale convey | |
| Than e’er were traced by man’s divinest art,— | |
| These speak in simple language to the heart. | |
| Far to the south what scenes of ruin lie, | 45 |
| What sad confusion opens to the eye! | |
| There shattered columns swell with giant train, | |
| Line after line along the crowded plain, | |
| The loosened arch, the roofless colonnade | |
| Where midday crowds imbibed the cooling shade. * * * * * | 50 |
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