Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79. | | | | Mesopotamia: Babylon | | Benina to Belshazzar | | Henry Hart Milman (1791–1868) |
| | (From Belshazzar)
I HEAR abroad | |
| The exultation of unfettered earth! | |
| From east to west they lift their trampled necks, | |
| The indignant nations: earth breaks out in scorn; | |
| The valleys dance and sing; the mountains shake | 5 |
| Their cedar-crownéd tops! The strangers crowd | |
| To gaze upon the howling wilderness, | |
| Where stood the Queen of Nations. Lo! even now, | |
| Lazy Euphrates rolls his sullen waves | |
| Through wastes, and but reflects his own thick reeds. | 10 |
| I hear the bitterns shriek, the dragons cry; | |
| I see the shadow of the midnight owl | |
| Gliding where now are laughter-echoing palaces! | |
| O’er the vast plain I see the mighty tombs | |
| Of kings, in sad and broken whiteness gleam | 15 |
| Beneath the o’ergrown cypress,—but no tomb | |
| Bears record, Babylon, of thy last lord; | |
| Even monuments are silent of Belshazzar! | | | | |
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