| |
| SHE sat where the level sands | |
| Sent back the sky’s fierce glare; | |
| She folded her mighty hands, | |
| And waited with calm despair, | |
| While the red sun dropped down the streaming air. | 5 |
| |
| Her throne was broad and low, | |
| Builded of cinnamon; | |
| Huge ivory, row on row, | |
| Varying its columns dun, | |
| Barred with the copper of the setting sun. | 10 |
| |
| Up from the river came | |
| The low and sullen roar | |
| Of lions, with eyes of flame, | |
| That haunted its reedy shore, | |
| And the neigh of the hippopotamus, | 15 |
| Trampling the watery floor. | |
| |
| Her great dusk face no light | |
| From the sunset-glow could take; | |
| Dark as the primal night | |
| Ere over the earth God spake: | 20 |
| It seemed for her a dawn could never break. | |
| |
| She opened her massy lips, | |
| And sighed with a dreary sound, | |
| As when by the sand’s eclipse | |
| Bewildered men are bound, | 25 |
| And like a train of mourners | |
| The columned winds sweep round. | |
| |
| She said: “My torch at fount of day | |
| I lit, now smouldering in decay: | |
| Through futures vast I grope my way. | 30 |
| |
| “I was sole queen the broad earth through: | |
| My children round my knees upgrew, | |
| And from my breast sucked Wisdom’s dew. | |
| |
| “Day after day to them I hymned; | |
| Fresh knowledge still my song o’erbrimmed, | 35 |
| Fresh knowledge, which no time had dimmed. | |
| |
| “I sang of Numbers; soon they knew | |
| The spell they wrought, and on the blue | |
| Foretold the stars in order due;— | |
| |
| “Of Music; and they fain would rear | 40 |
| Something to tell its influence clear; | |
| Uprose my Memnon, with nice ear, | |
| |
| “To wait upon the morning air, | |
| Until the sun rose from his lair | |
| Swifter, at greet of lutings rare. | 45 |
| |
| “I sang of Forces whose great bands | |
| Could knit together feeble hands | |
| To uprear Thought’s supreme commands: | |
| |
| “Then, like broad tents, beside the Nile | |
| They pitched the Pyramids’ great pile; | 50 |
| Where light and shade divided smile; | |
| |
| “And on white walls, in stately show, | |
| Did Painting with fair movement go, | |
| Leading the long processions slow. | |
| |
| “All laws that wondrous Nature taught, | 55 |
| To serve my children’s skill I brought, | |
| And still for fresh devices sought. | |
| |
| “What need to tell? they lapsed away, | |
| Their great light quenched in twilight gray, | |
| Within their winding tombs they lay, | 60 |
| |
| “And centuries went slowly by, | |
| And looked into my sleepless eye, | |
| Which only turned to see them die. | |
| |
| “The winds like mighty spirits came, | |
| Alive and pure and strong as flame, | 65 |
| At last to lift me from my shame; | |
| |
| “For oft I heard them onward go, | |
| Felt in the air their great wings row, | |
| As down they dipped in journeying slow. | |
| |
| “Their course they steered above my head. | 70 |
| One strong voice to another said,— | |
| ‘Why sits she here so drear and dead? | |
| |
| “‘Her kingdom stretches far away; | |
| Beyond the utmost verge of day, | |
| Her myriad children dance and play.’ | 75 |
| |
| “Then throbbed my mother’s heart again, | |
| Then knew my pulses finer pain, | |
| Which wrought like fire within my brain. | |
| |
| “I sought my young barbarians, where | |
| A mellower light broods on the air, | 80 |
| And heavier blooms swing incense rare. | |
| |
| “Swart-skinned, crisp-haired, they did not shun | |
| The burning arrows of the sun; | |
| Erect as palms stood every one. | |
| |
| “I said,—These shall live out their day | 85 |
| In song and dance and endless play; | |
| The children of the world are they. | |
| |
| “Nor need they delve with heavy spade; | |
| Their bread, on emerald dishes laid, | |
| Sets forth a banquet in each shade. | 90 |
| |
| “Only the thoughtful bees shall store | |
| Their honey for them evermore; | |
| They shall not learn such toilsome lore; | |
| |
| “Their finest skill shall be to snare | |
| The birds that flaunt along the air, | 95 |
| And deck them in their feathers rare. | |
| |
| “So centuries went on their way, | |
| And brought fresh generations gay | |
| On my savannas green to play. | |
| |
| “There came a change. They took my free, | 100 |
| My careless ones, and the great sea | |
| Blew back their endless sighs to me: | |
| |
| “With earthquake shudderings oft the mould | |
| Would gape; I saw keen spears of gold | |
| Thrusting red hearts down, not yet cold, | 105 |
| |
| “But throbbing wildly; dreadful groans | |
| Stole upward through Earth’s ribbéd stones, | |
| And crept along through all my zones. | |
| |
| “I sought again my desert bare, | |
| But still they followed on the air, | 110 |
| And still I hear them everywhere. | |
| |
| “So sit I dreary, desolate, | |
| Till the slow-moving hand of Fate | |
| Shall lift me from my sunken state.” | |
| |
| Her great lips closed upon her moan; | 115 |
| Silently sate she on her throne, | |
| Rigid and black, as carved in stone. | |
| |
