Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.

Asia Minor: Cyprus, the Island

Sonnet

By James Montgomery (1771–1854)

On the Siege of Famagusta, in the Island of Cyprus, by the Turks, in 1571

THUS saith the Lord: “In whom shall Cyprus trust,

With all her crimes, her luxury, and pride?

In her voluptuous loves will she confide,

Her harlot-daughters, and her queen of lust?

My day is come when o’er her neck in dust

Vengeance and fury shall triumphant ride,

Death and captivity the spoil divide,

And Cyprus perish: I the Lord am just.

Then he that bought, and he that sold in thee,

Thy princely merchants, shall their loss deplore,

Brothers in ruin as in fraud before;

And thou, who madest thy rampart of the sea,

Less by thy foes cast down than crushed by me!

Thou, Famagusta! fall, and rise no more.”