Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79.
Olympia Morata
By Sir Henry Taylor (1800–1886)A
O Italy! against thee: she whose death
This stone commemorates with no common praise,
By birth was thine; but, being vowed to Truth,
The blood-stained hand that lurks beneath thine alb
Was raised to strike, and lest one crime the more
Should stand in thine account to heaven, she fled.
Then hither came she, young but erudite,
With ardor flushed, but with old wisdom stored
(Which spake no tongue she knew not), apt to learn
And eloquent to teach, and welcomed here
Gave the brief beauty of her innocent life
An alien race to illustrate, and here
Dying in youth (the beauty of her death
Sealing her life’s repute) her ashes gave
An honor to the land that honored her.
The prophets! if thy house be desolate,
Those temples too are desolate, and that land,
Where Truth’s pure votaries may not leave their dust.