Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79.
The Straits of Gibraltar
By William Gibson (18261887)“L
Which bade, as forth its tidings went,
The deeps of sea and air rejoice
For a new element!
Beautiful is the rise of Earth
Up from the bosom of the deep,
As at Creation’s birth!
That woke such feelings of delight;
For now, the wide Atlantic crossed,
The Old World met the sight.
With full sails swelling gloriously;
And, long before the day was gone,
There rose up near and high
Whose maidens erst, with dark-bright eyes,
Looked down upon the splintered lance,
And gave the victor’s prize.
Magnificent but evil-starred,
Against an island of the north,
For whom the tempest warred.
Her far-off provinces Perus,
Before that island’s flag unfurled
Doomed pomp and power to lose.
The eye could just behold afar
The column—with the telescope—
Which stands on Trafalgar.
In war, while nations thronged the sea,
Which Nelson’s prowess overthrew
In his death-victory!
A continent on either hand,—
We saw, like guardians of the gate,
The mountain-monsters stand.
Sunburnt and steep, upon the right,
Appeared the mountains of the Moor,
Bare with primeval blight.
Old Atlas propped the leaning sky,
Wearing upon his shoulders hoar
A snowy drapery.
Told that the ship was anchored now
Within the shadow of the Rock,—
Beneath the Lion’s brow!
Well seemed these walls the ends of earth:
Death and a dark eternity
Sublimely symbolled forth!
The will—the wings—that deep to brave;
In the sun’s path to find a heaven—
A New World—o’er the wave!
Our course was from the setting sun;
While all the visible works of God,
Though various else, had one,—
The crownéd day, from morn till even;
From east to west, in night’s great arch,
The starry host of heaven!
May thine in the ascendant be,
I sing, as swells our martial hymn,
America, to thee!