Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.
Mount Ida
By Seymour Green Wheeler Benjamin (18371914)N
The winds are hushed; becalmed the isleman’s bark
Shows its white pinions on the increasing dark,
And mournfully at foot of yonder steep
The dying surf rolls up the lonely shore.
Lo! heaving hoary-headed to the sky,
In stern but venerable majesty,
Mount Ida distant stands. There, times of yore,
The shepherd prince his pastoral syrinx played;
And there did lofty walls and turrets gleam
(Whose very memory seemeth like a dream)
That stood coeval with Achilles’ shade.
O, since the Cyclades with beacons shone,
What ages have bewailed for Troy o’erthrown!