When roved the Muses in Ausonian bowers,
Weaving immortal crowns of fairest flowers;
When angel-truth dispersed, with beam divine,
The clouds that veil’d religion’s hallow’d shrine
Those golden days beheld Iberia tower
High on the pyramid of fame and power;
Vain all the efforts of her numerous foes,
Her might, superior still, triumphant rose.
Thus on proud Lebanon’s exalted brow,
The cedar, frowning o’er the plains below,