| |
| I SAW, as in a dream, the pride of Thebes. | |
| The hundred-gated walls in majesty | |
| Rose high above the meads where harvest grain | |
| Waved musical before the morning breeze. | |
| The strains of Memnon hailed the coming day, | 5 |
| And sun-gilt wreaths of smoke curled slowly up | |
| From myriad hecatombs, as mystic rites | |
| Were offered at the shrines of Mizraim’s gods. | |
| Lo! winding through the wide champaign, and by | |
| The eternal Nile, Rameses victor came, | 10 |
| Leading a veteran host, whose flaming arms | |
| Had roused Libanus’ eagles, and had gleamed | |
| Upon the famed Hydaspes’ amber tide. | |
| The royal pageant moved along the aisle | |
| Of solemn-featured sphinxes to Karnak, | 15 |
| Until beneath the pillars lotus-crowned, | |
| A voice said, “Welcome here, son of the gods.” | |
| |
| Such once was Thebes. Meridian glory sheened | |
| Her battlements ere god-built Ilion fell. | |
| But now, ye who would vaunt yourselves in man, | 20 |
| Behold her desolation. Fate has walked | |
| With hearse-like shadow where the Pharaohs dwelt; | |
| And now the summer sun diurnal flecks | |
| With rosy light deserted colonnades, | |
| Where sings the grasshopper his droning tune, | 25 |
| Where dreams the desert’s swarthy child, and bleats | |
| The plaintive flock. The moon glides up the vault, | |
| And her first rays illume the rugged brows | |
| Of the Memnonium’s marble men, who loom | |
| Beneath that pallid light like giant ghosts | 30 |
| Above the haunted land; the owlet chants | |
| His wizard requiem o’er Karnak the lone, | |
| The bat flits round amid the sculptured blocks, | |
| And the sad night-wind sobs as it has wailed | |
| For ages through the pylons hoar and gloomed. | 35 |
| |
| Like ancient wood, whose river-shadowing trees, | |
| Stripped of their leafy crests by autumn gales, | |
| Stand dismal skeletons, and mourn their fate— | |
| Thus Luxor’s grove of columns has looked down | |
| August with age these thrice ten hundred years, | 40 |
| Upon the azure Nile, that rolls sublime, | |
| A mystery of mysteries, whose founts | |
| Are sealed to mortal eye. A wilderness | |
| Weaves o’er its flood arcades of sylvan green, | |
| Until it leaves its native wilds, and roams | 45 |
| By empires long decayed, and cities left | |
| To the hyena’s den. By Thebes it sweeps | |
| With solitary grandeur towards the sea. | |
| But still its waves their annual tribute bring, | |
| And bless the parchéd wold with vernal bloom, | 50 |
| And pay obeisance at stern Memnon’s feet,— | |
| The monarch grim of Thebes’s solitude, | |
| Who to Imagination’s ear yet sings | |
| The dirge notes of the nations as they die. | |
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