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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Greece and Turkey in Europe: Vol. XIX. 1876–79.

Greece: Tempe, the Vale, Thessaly

Tempe

By Catullus (c. 84–c. 54)

(From On the Nuptials of Peleus, and Thetis)
Translated by F. Nott

FROM Tempe’s vale next ancient Peneus came,

That fertile vale immortalized in fame!

Where Messos’ blue-eyed nymphs delight to rove,

Tempe o’erhung with many a circling grove!

The bay’s aspiring and straight trunk he brought;

The uprooted beech, with stately branches fraught;

The plane, whose foliage spreads a trembling shade;

The cypress tall, that lifts to heaven its head;

And the fam’d tree, that wept, with sister love,

The youth destroyed by the red bolts of Jove,—

All these he amply wove around the throne,

And varying greens in the gay covert shone.