Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79. | | | | Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia: Tentyra (Denderah) | | Tentyra | | Nicholas Michell (1807–1880) |
| | (From Ruins of Many Lands)
WHAT yonder rises? ’T is Tentyra’s fane, | |
| That stands, like some dark giant, on the plain. | |
| Rival of Karnak, Edfou, stern and lone, | |
| It looks to heaven, its founder, date unknown. | |
| Its lofty portico and painted walls, | 5 |
| Its snake-wreathed globes and dim resounding halls, | |
| Towers where ten thousand sculptured forms ye trace, | |
| Awe with their vastness, charm us with their grace. | |
| And this was Isis’ dwelling,—still she stands | |
| Breathing from stone, with meekly lifted hands. | 10 |
| Dark mother! to whom zeal these walls upreared, | |
| Whom monarchs reverenced, and whom myriads feared, | |
| What wert thou, shrouded in thy silver veil, | |
| That thus the ancient world should bend and quail? | |
| Didst thou, as mortal beauty once adored, | 15 |
| Break by love’s charm the sceptre and the sword? | |
| Wert thou a queen, and, when life’s dream was o’er, | |
| A goddess hailed to rule forevermore?— | |
| Vain, mystic being! will each effort be | |
| To pierce the cloud that wraps thy age and thee, | 20 |
| Thy pompous rites as secret as thy birth, | |
| Thy solemn worship passed away from earth. | | | | |
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