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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  The Fall of Goa

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.

India: Goa

The Fall of Goa

By Mauoel Maria de Barbosa Du Bocage (1765–1805)

Anonymous translation

FALLEN is the emporium of the Orient,

That stern Alfonso’s arms in dread array

Erst from the Tartar despot tore away,

Shaming in war the god armipotent.

Goa lies low! that fortress eminent,

Dread of the haughty Nayre, the false Malay,

Of many a barbarous tribe. What faint dismay

In Lusian breasts the martial fire has spent?

O bygone age of heroes! days of glory!

Exalted men! ye, who, despite grim death,

Still in tradition live, still live in story,

Terrible Albuquerque, and Castro great,—

And you, their peers, your deeds in memory’s breath

Preserved, avenge the wrongs we bear from fate!