Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79.
An Egyptian Tomb
By William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850)P
Shade of the mighty passed away,
Whose giant works still frown sublime
Mid the twilight shades of time;
Fanes, of sculpture vast and rude,
That strew the sandy solitude,
Lo! before our startled eyes,
As at a wizard’s wand, ye rise,
Glimmering larger through the gloom!
While on the secrets of the tomb,
Rapt in other times, we gaze,
The Mother Queen of ancient days,
Her mystic symbol in her hand,
Great Isis, seems herself to stand.
Hark! heard ye not Osiris’ hymn?
And saw ye not in order dread
The long procession of the dead?
Forms that the night of years concealed,
As by a flash, are here revealed;
Chiefs who sang the victor song;
Sceptred kings,—a shadowy throng,—
From slumber of three thousand years
Each, as in light and life, appears,
Stern as of yore! Yes, vision vast,
Three thousand years have silent passed,
Suns of empire risen and set,
Whose story Time can ne’er forget,
Time, in the morning of her pride
Immense, along the Nile’s green side,
The City of the Sun appeared,
And her gigantic image reared.
When the sun, with rising ray,
Streaked the lonely desert gray,
Sent forth its magic murmuring,
That just was heard,—then died away;
So passed, O Thebes! thy morning pride!
Thy glory was the sound that died!
Dark city of the desolate,
Once thou wert rich, and proud, and great!
This busy-peopled isle was then
A waste, or roamed by savage men
Whose gay descendants now appear
To mark thy wreck of glory here.
Whose mystic spoils I now behold,
A kingdom’s sepulchre, O, say,
Shall Albion’s own illustrious day
Thus darkly close! Her power, her fame,
Thus pass away, a shade, a name!
The Mausoleum murmured as I spoke;
A spectre seemed to rise, like towering smoke;
It answered not, but pointed as it fled
To the black carcass of the sightless dead.
Once more I heard the sounds of earthly strife,
And the streets ringing to the stir of life.