Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79. | | | | India: Himalaya, the Mountains | | Hymn to Durga | | Sir William Jones (1746–1794) |
| | | FROM thee begins the solemn air, | |
| Adored Ganésa; next, thy sire we praise | |
| (Him, from whose red clustering hair | |
| A new-born crescent sheds propitious rays, | |
| Fair as Ganga’s curling foam), | 5 |
| Dread Is’wara; who loved o’er awful mountains, | |
| Rapt in prescience deep, to roam, | |
| But chiefly those, whence holy rivers gush, | |
| Bright from their secret fountains, | |
| And o’er the realms of Brahma rush. | 10 |
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| Rock above rock they ride sublime, | |
| And lose their summits in blue fields of day, | |
| Fashioned first, when rolling Time, | |
| Vast infant, in his golden cradle lay, | |
| Bidding endless ages run | 15 |
| And wreathe their giant heads in snows eternal | |
| Gilt by each revolving sun; | |
| Though neither morning beam, nor noontide glare, | |
| In wintry sign or vernal, | |
| Their adamantine strength impair; | 20 |
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| Nor e’en the fiercest summer heat | |
| Could thrill the palace, where their monarch reigned | |
| On his frost-impearléd seat, | |
| (Such height had unremitted virtue gained!) | |
| Himalaya, to whom a lovely child, | 25 |
| Sweet Parvatì, sage Mena bore, | |
| Who now, in earliest bloom, saw heaven adore | |
| Her charms, earth languish till she smiled. * * * * * | | | | |
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