Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.
The Cedars of Lebanon
By Letitia Elizabeth Landon (18021838)Y
Swept the fierce banners of earth’s mightiest kings,
When millions for a battle were arrayed,
And the sky darkened with the vulture’s wings.
First the bones whitened, then were seen no more;
The summer grasses sprang for summer skies,
And dim tradition told no tales of yore.
Men left the desert tents for marble walls;
Then rose the towers from whence they watched the stars,
And the vast wonders of their kingly halls.
Read not amid the midnight stars their doom;
The pomp and art of all their glorious hours
Lie hidden in the sands that are their tomb.
Of the first strength that marked earth’s earlier clime:
But still ye stand, stately and tempest-worn,
To show how nature triumphs over time.
The mind’s great empire is but just begun;
The desert beauty of your distant plains
Proclaim how much has yet been left undone.
The world’s old age, enlightened, calm, and free;
More glorious than the glories known of old,—
The spirit’s placid rule o’er land and sea?
Wisdom is garnered up from centuries gone;
Love, Hope, and Mind prepare a nobler reign
Than ye have known,—Cedars of Lebanon!