Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79. | | | | Syria: Baalbec | | Baalbec | | Nicholas Michell (1807–1880) |
| | (From Ruins of Many Lands)
BAALBEC! thou glorious city! where the sun, | |
| Long ages back, mysterious worship won; | |
| Where, turning eastward, myriads bent the knee, | |
| Well might Day’s burning god be proud of thee. | |
| As now he sinks behind the cedared hills, | 5 |
| Bathing with gold the rocks and falling rills, | |
| Doth he not view, with sad, regretful eye, | |
| The beauteous wreck of glories long gone by, | |
| And teach the desert wind to creep and moan | |
| Around each prostrate shaft and ivied stone? * * * * * | 10 |
| City of mystery! by whose hands were piled | |
| These gorgeous fanes on Syria’s lonely wild? | |
| No record tells, but Roman art is here, | |
| More rich than chaste, more splendid than severe. | |
| Who reared yon stones?—or were they upward hurled, | 15 |
| The huge foundations of a granite world? | |
| A hundred giants could not lift them there,— | |
| Did Eblis build their mass, or powers of air? | |
| We ask in vain, and only marvelling stand, | |
| And scarce believe that work by human hand. | 20 |
| And yet, perchance, far back in history’s night, | |
| These blocks were heaved by old Phœnician might, | |
| And here, since Abraham walked the world, have lain, | |
| The elder Baalbec’s dark and sole remain. | | | | |
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