Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79.

Spain: Sierra Morena

Sierra Morena

By Lord Byron (1788–1824)

(From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage)

AT every turn Morena’s dusky height

Sustains aloft the battery’s iron load;

And, far as mortal eye can compass sight,

The mountain-howitzer, the broken road,

The bristling palisade, the fosse o’erflowed,

The stationed bands, the never-vacant watch,

The magazine in rocky durance stowed,

The holstered steed beneath the shed of thatch,

The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match,

Portend the deeds to come: but he whose nod

Has tumbled feebler despots from their sway,

A moment pauseth ere he lifts the rod;

A little moment deigneth to delay:

Soon will his legions sweep through these their way;

The West must own the scourger of the world.

Ah, Spain! how sad will be thy reckoning-day,

When soars Gaul’s Vulture, with his wings unfurled,

And thou shalt view thy sons in crowds to Hades hurled!