The Vale of Tempe is a gorge in northern Thessaly, Greece. The mountain to the north of the gorge is Olympus, and the Ossa mountain is to the south, creating a river valley. In ancient times, the Greeks would celebrate this land, and even put up a temple for Apollo, which was used for worship to the Greek God of the Sun. In Barbauld's poem Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, the Tempe of Vale is one of the many places across Europe that Barbauld described as once a place of European beauty and power, but with the rise of the West, its shine will diminish.