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(From Ruins of Many Lands)
THEBES, hearing still the Memnon’s mystic tones, | |
| Where Egypt’s earliest monarchs reared their thrones, | |
| Favored of Jove! the hundred-gated queen | |
| Though fallen, grand; though desolate, serene; | |
| The blood with awe runs coldly through our veins, | 5 |
| As we approach her far-spread, vast remains. | |
| Forests of pillars crown old Nilus’ side, | |
| Obelisks to heaven high lift their sculptured pride; | |
| Rows of dark sphinxes, sweeping far away, | |
| Lead to proud fanes, and tombs august as they. | 10 |
| Colossal chiefs in granite sit around, | |
| As wrapped in thought, or sunk in grief profound. | |
| Titans or gods sure built these walls that stand | |
| Defying years, and Ruin’s wasting hand. | |
| So vast, sublime the view, we almost deem | 15 |
| We rove, spell-bound, through some fantastic dream, | |
| Sweep through the halls that Typhon rears below, | |
| And see, in yon dark Nile, hell’s rivers flow. | |
| E’en as we walk these fanes and ruined ways, | |
| In musings lost, yet dazzled while we gaze, | 20 |
| The mighty columns ranged in long array, | |
| The statues fresh as chiselled yesterday, | |
| We scarce can think two thousand years have flown | |
| Since in proud Thebes a Pharaoh’s grandeur shone, | |
| But in yon marble court or sphinx-lined street | 25 |
| Some moving pageant half expect to meet, | |
| See great Sesostris, come from distant war, | |
| Kings linked in chains to drag his ivory car; | |
| Or view that bright procession sweeping on, | |
| To meet at Memphis far-famed Solomon, | 30 |
| When, borne by Love, he crossed the Syrian wild, | |
| To wed the royal Pharaoh’s blooming child. | |
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| Here let me sit in Karnak’s gorgeous hall, | |
| Firm as when reared each massy pictured wall: | |
| Yielding to meditation’s calm control, | 35 |
| How shrinks, in conscious littleness, the soul! | |
| And as thought leaps the gulf that yawns between | |
| Past days and now, what is and what hath been, | |
| How brief, how petty human life appears! | |
| A cloud that fleeteth as it rains its tears; | 40 |
| A puny wave on Time’s vast ocean-shore, | |
| That frets and foams, then melts to swell no more. | |
| These ancient piles a higher moral teach | |
| Than sage can write, or orator can preach: | |
| The heart grows humbler in a scene like this, | 45 |
| Yet soars above low schemes of transient bliss; | |
| And while it sighs that man should waste his hours, | |
| Rearing such mighty fanes to unknown powers, | |
| Looks inward at the creed itself maintains, | |
| If born of heaven, or free from error’s stains. | 50 |
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| But musing thus, by wandering dreams beguiled, | |
| We half forget the fabrics round us piled,— | |
| Fabrics that breathe from every sculptured stone | |
| Awe and a solemn grandeur all their own. | |
| Dim vistas stretch, white columns yonder rise, | 55 |
| And obelisks point, like flame, into the skies. | |
| There frown huge kings in stone,—such frown they wore | |
| When on their thrones three thousand years before; | |
| And one, the mightiest, Isis’ arms entwine, | |
| Immortal deemed, and like herself divine. | 60 |
| O, wondrous art! yon granite roof behold! | |
| Fair still the colors, glittering still the gold; | |
| In azure skies, moons, clustering stars, appear,— | |
| Alas! the cunning hand that traced them here! | |
| But pass we altars and rich glorious things, | 65 |
| Gigantic pillars, echoing halls of kings; | |
| What see we traced in outline? shadowy, dim, | |
| The very breathing face and sinewy limb,— | |
| ’T is Thothmes, he who bade the Hebrew groan, | |
| When hailstones fell and thunders shook his throne, | 70 |
| He to whom Moses spoke, the king who sped | |
| On wings of wrath when trembling Israel fled, | |
| Raised his bright sword, and drove his bickering car, | |
| Comet-like breathing terror from afar, | |
| Pursued his foe adown the Red Sea coast, | 75 |
| Then sank engulfed with all his fiery host. | |
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