Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79. | | | | India: Salsette, the Island | | Salsette | | Nicholas Michell (1807–1880) |
| | (From Ruins of Many Lands)
HARK! from Salsette’s once fair and flowery shore | |
| The jackal’s cry, the tiger’s hollow roar; | |
| Where dark-eyed Nautch-girls danced in beauty’s pride, | |
| The toad spits venom now, and serpents glide; | |
| The marble steps are clothed with waving grass, | 5 |
| No sun-bright streams purl music as ye pass; | |
| Yon altars own no more the prophet’s sway; | |
| The Eden that once bloomed hath passed away. | |
| Yet here, mid scenes luxuriant as sublime, | |
| Was Buddha worshipped, pride of elder time, | 10 |
| Classed with those spirits centuries only bring, | |
| To raise their kind, and clear Truth’s darkening spring; | |
| Blessed sage of Ind! but Persecution’s brand | |
| His followers smote,—they fled their native land; | |
| Their creed, their rites the hapless exiles bore | 15 |
| To many a foreign wild and mountain shore; | |
| And fast their doctrines spread,—to Buddha now, | |
| Like leaves in autumn, countless millions bow. | | | | |
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