Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79. | | | | Spain: Escurial (Escorial), the | | The Escurial | | Théophile Gautier (1811–1872) |
| | Translated by C. F. Bates
SET as a challenge at the mountain’s side, | |
| Afar the dark Escurial is descried. | |
| Three hundred feet from earth uplifting thus | |
| On its colossal shoulder firmly braced, | |
| Huge elephant, the cupola defaced, | 5 |
| Granite debauch of Spain’s Tiberius. | |
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| Old Pharaoh built not for his mummy’s tomb | |
| On mountain-side a thing of greater gloom; | |
| The desert’s sphinx hath seen no more unrest. | |
| In chimney-tops the stork is sleeping now, | 10 |
| Through all the abandoned courts the grasses grow, | |
| Of monks, priests, soldiers, courtiers, dispossessed. | |
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| All would seem dead, but that from everything, | |
| Niche, cornice, fronton, hand of sculptured king, | |
| The flocks of swallows constant flutter keep, | 15 |
| With their wild merriment and charming cries; | |
| Teasing, with flapping wings to ope his eyes, | |
| This drowsy giant of eternal sleep. | | | | |
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