Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79.
The Alhambra
By Felicia Hemans (17931835)L
Thou fair Alhambra! there the feast is o’er;
And with the murmur of thy fountain falls
Blend the wild tones of minstrelsy no more.
Have mourned, exulted, menaced, through thy towers;
Within thy pillared courts the grass waves high,
And all uncultured bloom thy fairy bowers.
Through tall arcades unmarked the sunbeam smiles,
And many a tint of softened brilliance throws
O’er fretted walls and shining peristyles.
So vast, so silent, and so wildly fair,
Some charmed abode of beings all unknown,
Powerful and viewless, children of the air.
There not a sound the deep repose pervades,
Save winds and founts, diffusing freshness round,
Through the light domes and graceful colonnades.
In days romance yet fondly loves to trace,—
The clash of arms, the voice of choral song,
The revels, combats of a vanished race.
Shall rise that race, the chivalrous, the bold;
Peopling once more each fair forsaken hall
With stately forms, the knights and chiefs of old.