Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory and city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the Atlantic Ocean (Strait of Gibraltar). It has an area of 6.7 square kilometres (2.6 sq mi) and is bordered to the north by Spain (Campo de Gibraltar). The landscape is dominated by the Rock of Gibraltar, at the foot of which is a densely populated town area, home to some 32,688 people (2022 estimate), primarily Gibraltarians.

Quotes

• England, we love thee better than we know—
  And this I learned, when after wanderings long
  ’Mid people of another stock and tongue,
  I heard again thy martial music blow,
  And saw thy gallant children to and fro
  Pace, keeping ward at one of those huge gates,
  Which like twin giants watch the Herculean straits:
  When first I came in sight of that brave show,
  It made my very heart within me dance,
  To think that thou thy proud foot shouldst advance
  Forward so far into the mighty sea;
  Joy was it and exultation to behold
  Thine ancient standard’s rich emblazonry,
  A glorious picture by the wind unrolled.
  • Richard Chenevix Trench, "Gibraltar", in Poems: Collected and Arranged Anew (1865), p. 59
  • Variants: 7. Twin giants watching the Herculean Straits. · 9. ... the very ...

• Seven weeks of sea, and twice seven days of storm
  Upon the huge Atlantic, and once more
  We ride into still water and the calm
  Of a sweet evening, screen’d by either shore
  Of Spain and Barbary. Our toils are o’er,
  Our exile is accomplish’d. Once again
  We look on Europe, mistress as of yore
  Of the fair earth and of the hearts of men.
  Ay, this is the famed rock which Hercules
  And Goth and Moor bequeath’d us. At this door
  England stands sentry. God! to hear the shrill
  Sweet treble of her fifes upon the breeze,
  And at the summons of the rock gun’s roar
  To see her red coats marching from the hill!
  • Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, "Gibraltar", in The Love Sonnets of Proteus, 3rd ed. (1882), p. 120