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Translated by G. E. Shirley
BESIDE the Nile, mid desert sands, | |
| A royal-looking lion stands, | |
| As yellow as the sand he treads, | |
| Or the Simoom that round him spreads. | |
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| A royal mantle’s shaggy train | 5 |
| Waves round his breast, his ample mane; | |
| A royal crown of passing show, | |
| His stiff hair, bristles on his brow. | |
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| He lifts his head and roars amain; | |
| So wild and hollow is the strain, | 10 |
| It booms along the desert sand | |
| And shakes the flood on Mœris’ strand. | |
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| Stiffens the panther’s roseate hide, | |
| The fleet gazelle flies terrified; | |
| Camel and crocodile ashore | 15 |
| List to the monarch’s angry roar. | |
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| Its echoes from the Nile rebound, | |
| The Pyramids fling back the sound, | |
| The royal mummy, brown and weary, | |
| It wakes from out his slumbers dreary. | 20 |
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| He rises in his narrow shrine, | |
| “Thanks, Lion, for that roar of thine! | |
| Thousands of years in sleep I ’ve passed, | |
| Awoke by thy loud roar at last. | |
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| “Long time I ’ve dreamed away, ah me! | 25 |
| Years fringed with splendor, where are ye? | |
| When victory’s banners round me flew, | |
| Lion, thy sires my chariot drew. | |
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| “High on a golden car I rolled, | |
| Its pole was bright with burnished gold, | 30 |
| And spokes and wheels with pearls did shine; | |
| The town of a hundred gates was mine. | |
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| “This foot-sole too, now dry and spare, | |
| Trod on the black Moor’s matted hair, | |
| On Indian’s yellow brow was placed, | 35 |
| On necks of children of the waste. | |
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| “And this right hand once swayed the world, | |
| Now with stiff byssus close enfurled; | |
| What yonder hieroglyphics tell | |
| This bosom bore and knew full well. | 40 |
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| The tomb that now enshrines me here, | |
| With my own hand I helped to rear; | |
| I sat upon the spear-girt throne, | |
| My steward made the brickfields groan. | |
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| “My subject, the broad-bosomed Nile, | 45 |
| Rocked me on rapid keel awhile; | |
| Long have I lain in deep repose, | |
| The Nile-stream yet as ever flows. | |
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| “While I its Lord—” He said no more, | |
| Ceased had the Desert Wakener’s roar, | 50 |
| And sank again the monarch’s head | |
| Down in the silence of the dead. | |
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