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(From Mencheres)
METHOUGHT I floated on the ancient Nile | |
| ’Neath an abrupt and weird craggy pile, | |
| Its flame-hued cliffs caverned with many a tomb, | |
| Haunt of lone winds and birds of dusky plume. | |
| A boat with monks that chanted floated nigh; | 5 |
| But when they paused, some awful far reply | |
| Came ever from the mountain’s heart: one said, | |
| “A voice from old-world priests of ages dead, | |
| Who slumbering in their stupendous fane | |
| Deep in yon mountain’s heart are roused again | 10 |
| With a faint consciousness that stirs and dies | |
| To breathe a note of hoary litanies, | |
| Erewhile they chanted while impassive Death | |
| Quenched ever some poor heart’s weak flame of faith.” | |
| A tone it seemed bereft of life, unblest, | 15 |
| Emptied of thought and joy, vaguely opprest | |
| A moment with the living voice of prayer | |
| They have proved wasted on the lifeless air. | |
| Embers of old hope wake to feel the doom | |
| Of smothered souls in everlasting gloom. | 20 |
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| Then changed the scene,—for it was dark around: | |
| Methought I lay in silence drear profound | |
| On some hot sand; the close incumbent air | |
| Reeked faint as from some dismal creature’s lair, | |
| Some presence nigh of bird or beast obscene, | 25 |
| Hyena, bat, that loves to lurk unseen. | |
| And yet a dubious glimmer near me lay | |
| Upon the sand, and slow the space to gray | |
| Opened about me till I dim defined | |
| Columnar masses pale gigantic-lined | 30 |
| Rude, huge and lofty, with no capital | |
| Or fretted moulding wrought fantastical, | |
| Titanic blocks each horizontal laid | |
| From pier to pier, bridging abysmal shade. | |
| And lo! I saw each giant pillar bulged | 35 |
| With form stupendous as of man, divulged, | |
| Standing each speechless, vast along the stone, | |
| Each to the full height of his pillar grown,— | |
| A colonnade of these on either hand | |
| My twilit nave; afar they vague expand, | 40 |
| To my rapt vision dwindling infinite, | |
| Phantoms assembling in the halls of Night! | |
| And then I noted nigh a crevice small; | |
| Through this I deemed that Day into the Hall | |
| Passed half in awe to melt the shroud of gloom | 45 |
| That broods o’er these in their eternal tomb. | |
| These then in pauses of the living prayer | |
| Wailed that antistrophe of Death’s despair! | |
| And still Night jealous claims them for her own, | |
| Nor may her shadow free from them be thrown, | 50 |
| But silent like black water it abides | |
| Forever resting down their mighty sides. | |
| Their mummied forms are like their faces pale, | |
| Each in vast crossing hands the crook and flail | |
| Of an Osirian on his bosom broad | 55 |
| Holds folded close, each mitred like the god. | |
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| Their presence weighs upon the mortal sense, | |
| Informs with fear the solitude intense, | |
| Voiceless and moveless pale forever there, | |
| In some unguessed unhuman-wise aware. | 60 |
| But calm serene is every countenance, | |
| Unvexéd more of any human chance, | |
| Sublime unearthly in its restfulness, | |
| Quiet in destiny the passionless. | |
| Fond fool! to dream that hopes or joys or woes | 65 |
| Of ours may ruffle this immense repose! | |
| Can ever these have been of mortal race, | |
| Crushing for pelf or fame with eager face, | |
| Throbbing for pleasure, flushed elate with gain, | |
| Sullen or blank with loss and lit again? | 70 |
| Yea, these were mortal, even as thyself, | |
| And thou shalt be as they, O wildered elf! | |
| Blown tossed like sere leaves, little comforted, | |
| Thou shalt be tranquil calm as are the dead! | |
| Even thy vain bubble-turmoil in the flood | 75 |
| Viewed from the still height very grand and good! | |
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| Kindred with twilight now my vision grows, | |
| And straight between each pillared phantom shows | |
| Sunk in the darkness a sarcophagus, | |
| Heart of the darkness, solid, ponderous; | 80 |
| The massy lid of each, prodigious, shoved | |
| Awry as though the dread inmate had moved. | |
| Then I knew these were Pharaohs of the Sun, | |
| Ramses-Sesostris, Amunoph-Memnon, | |
| Sesortasen, and many a power beside, | 85 |
| Priest-kings imperial, who strode in pride | |
| Over dwarfed continents astonished pale | |
| Making the hearts of all the nations fail— | |
| Then every breath bore rumors of their fame: | |
| What are they now? the shadow of a name! * * * * * | 90 |
| ’T is noon, relentless rules the blaze | |
| Of our Sun-god that ne’er a breeze allays. | |
| Far, far away the windless river burning | |
| Through wan sand-levels dimly banked | |
| Of distant yellow hills, but nearer flanked | 95 |
| With palm-girt, loam-built thorps at every turning, | |
| And oft a huge stone temple spread | |
| With obelisk and sphinx and banner red; | |
| Silent from heat our swarthy sailors towing | |
| The boat becalmed with rope on land; | 100 |
| Anon some baked wave-minded mass at hand | |
| From yon loam-ridge is loosened in their going, | |
| Falling with sudden splash and thud, | |
| Nor mars my soul’s luxurious mood | |
| Enhanced of distant water-wheels’ long droning, | 105 |
| For dreamy listlessness akin | |
| To hazy light the lulled world swooneth in. | |
| I know the hind in midst of that intoning | |
| Sits in the centre of the wheel | |
| While hemp-slung jars tilt ever and refill, | 110 |
| A yoke of patient circling oxen guiding, | |
| Roofed from the scorching glare | |
| By large leaves of the melons trellised there. | |
| On yon low sandflat motionless abiding, | |
| Behold a crocodile, and nigh | 115 |
| Upon the neighbor bank one may espy | |
| Some ibis white with pink flamingoes resting; | |
| But when day waneth we shall hear | |
| Clangor of wild geese in the crystal clear, | |
| Their living chain wedgewise the glory breasting. | 120 |
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