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Palmyra was formerly a magnificent city of Asia, in the deserts of Arabia, about 6U miles east of Damascus, and above 20 miles west of the Euphrates, surrounded on the east, north, and west sides by a long chain of mountains. It is the Tadmor in the desert, built by Solomon—1 Kings ix. 18. Here lived the famed critic Longinus, and here Odenatus, and Zenobia his queen, formed a small kingdom, and performed wonderful exploits. The queen held out long against the Romans, but was at length taken captive, and led in triumph through the streets of Rome about A.D. 273. Its stupendous ruins are sufficient to astonish every judicious beholder. The present inhabitants have erected their mud cottages within the spacious court of a once magnificent temple of the sun.
Queen of the dreary wilderness!
No voice of life, no passing sound,
Disturbs thy dreadful calm around,
Save the wild desert-dweller's roar,
Which tells the reign of man is o'er.
Or winds that through thy portals sigh
Upon their night course flitting by!
Like giant spectres of the land;
Or o'er the dead like mourners hang,
Bent down by speechless sorrow's pang;
Where time, and space, and loneliness,
All, o'er the saddened spirit press.
Around in leaden slumbers lie
The dread wastes of infinity,
Where not a gentle hill doth swell,
Where not a hermit shrub doth dwell;
And where the song of wandering flood
Ne'er voiced the fearful solitude.
Flow o'er each broken arch that rears
Its grey head through the mist of years!
And where are now the dreams of fame,
The promise of a deathless name?
Alas! the deep delusion's gone!
And all except the mouldering stone,
The wreath that decked the victor's hair,
Hath like his glory withered there.
And Time's immortal garments twine
O'er desolation's mournful shrine,
Like youth's embrace around decline.
O'er Beauty's dark and desert bed
Ages of dreamless sleep have fled,