Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.
Smyrna
By Bayard Taylor (1825–1878)T
Of fair Ionia.” Yea; but Asia stands
No more an empress, and Ionia’s hands
Have lost their sceptre. Thou, majestic town,
Art as a diamond on a faded robe:
The freshness of thy beauty scatters yet
The radiance of that sun of Empire set,
Whose disk sublime illumed the ancient globe.
Thou sitt’st between the mountains and the sea;
The sea and mountains flatter thine array,
And fill thy courts with grandeur, not decay;
And power, not death, proclaims thy cypress tree.
Through thee, the sovereign symbols Nature lent
Her rise, make Asia’s fall magnificent.