Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79. | | | | Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia: Nile, the River | | To the Nile | | John Keats (1795–1821) |
| | | SON of the old moon-mountains African! | |
| Stream of the pyramid and crocodile! | |
| We call thee fruitful, and that very while | |
| A desert fills our seeing’s inward span: | |
| Nurse of swart nations since the world began, | 5 |
| Art thou so fruitful? or dost thou beguile | |
| Those men to honor thee, who, worn with toil, | |
| Rest them a space ’twixt Cairo and Decan? | |
| O, may dark fancies err! They surely do; | |
| ’T is ignorance that makes a barren waste | 10 |
| Of all beyond itself. Thou dost bedew | |
| Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste | |
| The pleasant sunrise. Green isles hast thou too, | |
| And to the sea as happily dost haste. | | | | |
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