Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.
The Euphrates
By Henry Hart Milman (17911868)T
Heard in thy inmost soul, I summon thee,
Cyrus, the Lord’s anointed! And thou river,
That flow’st exulting in thy proud approach
To Babylon, beneath whose shadowy walls
And brazen gates, and gilded palaces,
And groves that gleam with marble obelisks,
Thy azure bosom shall repose, with lights
Fretted and checkered like the starry heavens:
I do arrest thee in thy stately course,
By Him that poured thee from thine ancient fountain,
And sent thee forth, even at the birth of time,
One of his holy streams, to lave the mounts
Of Paradise. Thou hear’st me: thou dost check
Abrupt thy waters, as the Arab chief
His headlong squadrons. Where the unobserved
Yet toiling Persian breaks the ruining mound,
I see thee gather thy tumultuous strength:
And, through the deep and roaring Naharmalcha,
Roll on, as proudly conscious of fulfilling
The Omnipotent command! While, far away,
The lake, that slept but now so calm, nor moved
Save by the rippling moonshine, heaves on high
Its foaming surface, like a whirlpool gulf,
And boils and whitens with the unwonted tide.