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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Americas: Vol. XXX. 1876–79.

Central America: Copan, Guatemala

Copan

By Joaquin Miller (1837–1913)

(From With Walker in Nicaragua)

FAR in the wildest quinine wood

We found a city old,—so old,

Its very walls were turned to mould,

And stately trees upon them stood.

No history has mentioned it,

No map has given it a place;

The last dim trace of tribe and race,—

The world’s forgetfulness is fit.

It held one structure grand and mossed,

Mighty as any castle sung,

And old when oldest Ind was young,

With threshold Christian never crossed;

A temple builded to the sun,

Along whose sombre altar-stone

Brown bleeding virgins had been strown

Like leaves, when leaves are crisp and dun,

In ages ere the Sphinx was born,

Or Babylon had birth or morn.