Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79. | | | | Asia Minor: Smyrna | | Smyrna | | Bayard Taylor (1825–1878) |
| | | THE “ORNAMENT of Asia” and the “Crown | |
| Of fair Ionia.” Yea; but Asia stands | |
| No more an empress, and Ionia’s hands | |
| Have lost their sceptre. Thou, majestic town, | |
| Art as a diamond on a faded robe: | 5 |
| The freshness of thy beauty scatters yet | |
| The radiance of that sun of Empire set, | |
| Whose disk sublime illumed the ancient globe. | |
| Thou sitt’st between the mountains and the sea; | |
| The sea and mountains flatter thine array, | 10 |
| And fill thy courts with grandeur, not decay; | |
| And power, not death, proclaims thy cypress tree. | |
| Through thee, the sovereign symbols Nature lent | |
| Her rise, make Asia’s fall magnificent. | | | | |
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