Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79.

Spain: Cordova

The Cathedral

By Joseph Ellis

AS in a forest seeming infinite,

A portal and an altar everywhere,

The soul is moved to lofty thought, and prayer

Unto the Omnipresent One of might,

So had the pious Moslem purpose right,

Who did at Cordova this temple raise;

For when he wandered in the vasty maze

Of columns rich, in every hue bedight,

He knew no spot where he must offer praise,

Nor where he last was prostrate, nor the door

Wherethrough he gained the labyrinthine floor,

Unnoting which, among the nineteen ways;

Nor found he there incitement to adore,

Than as the thankful heart its homage pays.