| |
| AND thou hast walked about—how strange a story!— | |
| In Thebes’s streets, three thousand years ago! | |
| When the Memnonium was in all its glory, | |
| And time had not begun to overthrow | |
| Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous, | 5 |
| Of which the very ruins are tremendous! | |
| |
| Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dummy; | |
| Thou hast a tongue,—come, let us hear its tune! | |
| Thou ’rt standing on thy legs, above ground, mummy | |
| Revisiting the glimpses of the moon,— | 10 |
| Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures, | |
| But with thy bones, and flesh, and limbs, and features! | |
| |
| Tell us,—for doubtless thou canst recollect,— | |
| To whom should we assign the Sphinx’s fame? | |
| Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect | 15 |
| Of either pyramid that bears his name? | |
| Is Pompey’s Pillar really a misnomer? | |
| Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer? | |
| |
| Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden, | |
| By oath, to tell the mysteries of thy trade; | 20 |
| Then say, what secret melody was hidden | |
| In Memnon’s statue, which at sunrise played? | |
| Perhaps thou wert a priest; if so, my struggles | |
| Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles! | |
| |
| Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat, | 25 |
| Hath hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass; | |
| Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer’s hat; | |
| Or doffed thine own, to let Queen Dido pass; | |
| Or held, by Solomon’s own invitation, | |
| A torch at the great temple’s dedication! | 30 |
| |
| I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed, | |
| Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled; | |
| For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed, | |
| Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled: | |
| Antiquity appears to have begun | 35 |
| Long after thy primeval race was run. | |
| |
| Thou couldst develop, if that withered tongue | |
| Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen, | |
| How the world looked when it was fresh and young, | |
| And the great deluge still had left it green; | 40 |
| Or was it then so old that history’s pages | |
| Contained no record of its early ages? | |
| |
| Still silent!—Incommunicative elf! | |
| Art sworn to secrecy? Then keep thy vows! | |
| But, prithee, tell us something of thyself,— | 45 |
| Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house; | |
| Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered, | |
| What hast thou seen, what strange adventures numbered? | |
| |
| Since first thy form was in this box extended, | |
| We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations; | 50 |
| The Roman Empire has begun and ended, | |
| New worlds have risen, we have lost old nations, | |
| And countless kings have into dust been humbled, | |
| While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled. | |
| |
| Didst thou not hear the pother o’er thy head, | 55 |
| When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses, | |
| Marched armies o’er thy tomb with thundering tread, | |
| O’erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,— | |
| And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder, | |
| When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder? | 60 |
| |
| If the tomb’s secrets may not be confessed, | |
| The nature of thy private life unfold! | |
| A heart hath throbbed beneath that leathern breast, | |
| And tears adown that dusty cheek have rolled; | |
| Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face? | 65 |
| What was thy name and station, age and race? | |
| |
| Statue of flesh! Immortal of the dead! | |
| Imperishable type of evanescence! | |
| Posthumous man, who quitt’st thy narrow bed, | |
| And standest undecayed within our presence! | 70 |
| Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgment morning, | |
| When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning! | |
| |
| Why should this worthless tegument endure, | |
| If its undying guest be lost forever? | |
| O, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure | 75 |
| In living virtue, that when both must sever, | |
| Although corruption may our frame consume, | |
| The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom! | |
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