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Where sea-ward narrower rolls the shining tide
Though hills by hills embosom'd on each side,
Monastic walls in every glen arise
In coldest white fair glistening to the skies
Amid the brown-brow'd rocks; and, far as sight,
Proud domes and villages array'd in white[1]
Climb o'er the steeps, and thro' the dusky green
Of olive groves, and orange bowers between,
Speckled with glowing red, unnumber'd gleam—
And Lisboa towering o'er the lordly stream
Her marble palaces and temples spreads
Wildly magnific o'er the loaded heads
Of bending hills, along whose high-piled base
The port capacious, in a moon'd embrace,
Throws her mast-forest, waving on the gale
The vanes of every shore that hoists the sail.
Here, while the Sun from Europe's breast retires,
Let Fancy, roaming as the scene inspires,
- ↑ The houses in Portugal are generally whitened on the outside, white being esteemed as repulsive of the rays of the Sun.
