# Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1840/The Mosque at Cordova

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* THE GREAT MOSQUE & THE ALCAZAR, OR DUNGEON OF THE INQUISITION, CORDOVA, ON THE GUADALQUIVER.
* Artist: D. Roberts - Engraved by: T. Higham
THE MOSQUE AT CORDOVA.
This massive and splendid pile of architecture, in its original glory inferior only to the mosque at Mecca, was erected by the Khaliph Abderrahman in the year 786, and finished by his son Hishom about 800; succeeding sovereigns, however, added to its magnitude and splendour; so that the whole edifice was the work of eight monarchs of the house of Ummaiya. There is not, perhaps, upon the face of the habitable globe, any single scene so calculated to impress the mind of the spectator with a variety of distinct and powerful emotions, as that which the skilful and intelligent artist has here presented to our view. Whether we regard the city of Cordova as the ancient seat of learning, the birth-place of the two Senecas and the poet Lucan, or contemplate the heathen, Christian, and barbaric vestiges of former greatness, which it still retains, the mind is led onward in the history of men and nations, from one to another of those great land-marks, which the river of time has left unmoved by its perpetual ebb and flow.
Beyond the mosque, and stretching to the left, is a pile of building formerly called the Alcazor, but more fearfully known to modern times as the dungeon of the Inquisition.
Round the purple shadow  Of the twilight falls
O'er the sculptured marble
 Of Cordova's walls.
Scarcely is the present seen,
Thinking over what has been—
Over the crowned glories,
Told in ancient stories,
Of the Moslem rule in Spain.
Dark across the waters
 Came the gathered power,
Guided by Count Julian
 In an evil hour.
Castled height and wooded dell,
Knew the armed infidel.
Maidens in the orange bowers,
Knights within their armed towers,
Owned the Moslem rule in Spain.
Stately rose their city—
 Many towns are fair,
None rose like Granada
 In the morning air.
There the Moorish princes swayed
Empire which themselves had made.
Like a dream their memory dwells
Where the carved marble tells
Of the Moslem rule in Spain.
Mighty was the palace
 Of their royal race,
Still the Hall of Lions
 Has its ancient grace;
Still the silver fountains sing
As they sang before the king,
Murmuring to the mournful night,
As they murmured in the height
Of the Moslem rule in Spain.
Yet the azure colours
 On the ceiling shine,
Graved with golden letters
 Of the Koran's line.
They are marked with many a stain
From the dew and from the rain.
And each thing is as a sign
In decay and in decline,
Of the Moslem rule in Spain.
Yet what dreams of beauty
 Through the midnight glide:
Many a dark-eyed ladye,
 Lovely in her pride,
Gliding o'er the perfumed floor,
As she wont in days of yore.
Fantasy with time at war,
Calls dim memories from afar
Of the Moslem rule in Spain.
Yet in old Cordova,
 Mid the crowded streets,
Moorish trace and record
 At each step one meets.
Not alone the Moorish fane
Brings us back the past again;
But, like clouds on summer skies,
Fancy-shaped traditions rise
Of the Moslem rule in Spain.
Sacred unto poetry
 Is the mystic past,
Hence the fairy shadows
 Round the present cast.
Old songs lend their lovely wings
To a thousand lovely things.
And how many haunting songs
Still the charmed reign prolongs
Of the Moslem rule in Spain.
Honoured be each story
 Brought from other days,
But for them there were no flowers
 On our world-worn ways.
Every land, and every heart, Turn back to their earlier part.
Let old songs and stories live
While the fanciful they give
To the Moslem rule in Spain.
L. E. L.