Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Americas: Vol. XXX. 1876–79.
Rio Janeiro
By John Dunmore Lang (1799–1878)R
Their outline bold, drawn on the lofty sky.
Dom Pedro, thou art safe! Thy bulwarks are
Impregnable, Brazilian liberty!
Faction may ruin thee, but foreign war
Can ne’er assail thy strongholds. Live and die
Free, then, Brazilian! See how bounteous Heaven
For thy defence ramparts of rock hath given!
To Nature’s pyramids, unnumbered here?
Some stand like watch-towers distant in the sea,
As ’t were to signal give of danger near.
Others on land all riven! Perchance they be
Remnants of giant strife full many a year
Forgot. It may be they were rent asunder
By Titans and by antediluvian thunder.
Mountains uprear their snow-clad peaks afar,
And on each headland bold, strong batteries
Bespeak the infant Empire ripe for war.
Then the broad bay that, like some Scotch loch, lies
Encircled by steep hills, but lovelier far;
Its thousand isles clothed with rich verdure seem
All beauteous as the landscape of a dream.