Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79. | | | | Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia: Thebes | | Thebes | | Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton (1809–1885) |
| | (From The Burden of Egypt)
WHO would not feel and satisfy this want, | |
| Watching, as I, in Karnak’s roofless halls, | |
| Subnuvolar lights of evening sharply slant | |
| Through pillared masses and on wasted walls? | |
| Who would not learn, there is no form but palls | 5 |
| On the progressive spirit of mankind, | |
| When here around in soulless sorrow falls | |
| That which seemed permanence itself, designed | |
| To raze the sense of death from out all human mind. | |
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| For near the temple ever lies the tomb, | 10 |
| The dwelling, not the dungeon, of the dead, | |
| Where they abide in glorifying gloom, | |
| In lofty chambers with rich colors spread, | |
| Vast corridors, all carved and decorated | |
| For entertainment of their ghostly lord, | 15 |
| When he may leave his alabaster bed, | |
| And see, with pleasure earth could scarce afford, | |
| These subterranean walls his power and wealth record. | |
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| Often ’t was willed this splendor should be sealed | |
| Not only from profane but priestly eyes, | 20 |
| That to no future gaze might be revealed | |
| The secret palace where a Pharaoh lies, | |
| Amid his world-enduring obsequies; | |
| And though we, children of a distant shore, | |
| Here search and scan, yet much our skill defies; | 25 |
| One chance the less, some grains of sand the more, | |
| And never had been found that vault’s mysterious door. | | | | |
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