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| YE marvels of this ancient land, | |
| Ye dwellings of the dead, | |
| Where crownéd brow and sceptred hand | |
| Sleep in their dreamless bed, | |
| Lone monuments of other days | 5 |
| Who lift to Heaven your ceaseless gaze,— | |
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| Speak, for within your murky stone | |
| Philosophy may hear | |
| An echo of a hallowed tone, | |
| Telling to mortal ear | 10 |
| Lessons of wisdom deep and stern,— | |
| Lessons which pride is slow to learn;— | |
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| Speak how the glory and the power, | |
| The diadems of kings, | |
| Are but the visions of an hour, | 15 |
| All unenduring things; | |
| And how that Death hath made for all | |
| A chamber in his silent hall. * * * * * | |
| We know, we know that all must die! | |
| Where is our knowledge then,— | 20 |
| The plotting head, the beaming eye, | |
| The boasts of mortal men? | |
| In earth’s oblivion, dull and deep, | |
| We sleep our unawakened sleep; | |
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| Like forms that float in twilight’s shade, | 25 |
| And ere the day are gone,— | |
| When from his misty joyless glade | |
| Stern Hades glideth on, | |
| Wrapt in his robe of quiet gloom, | |
| To call us to the silent tomb. | 30 |
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| He will not loose in that dread hour | |
| The monarch’s jewelled brow, | |
| Won by the wealth, the pomp of power, | |
| In which he joyeth now: | |
| Poor mortal! while the sun of spring | 35 |
| Smiles on his warm imagining,— | |
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| Unhappy!—he hath thoughts of pride, | |
| And aspirations vain, | |
| And marches with a godlike stride, | |
| Chilling the courtier train | 40 |
| With the cold glance of royal ire, | |
| More dreaded than the lightning fire. | |
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| And what are these? in cold and cloud | |
| The motley pageant flies! | |
| Weep for the weakness of the proud, | 45 |
| The follies of the wise! | |
| Ever within the golden ring | |
| That rounds the temples of a king, | |
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| Death, Lord of all beneath the sky, | |
| Holdeth his stubborn court; | 50 |
| And, as he gives to royalty | |
| Its momentary sport, | |
| Points his wan finger all the while | |
| With shaking head and bitter smile: | |
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| And at the last the phantom thin | 55 |
| Leaps up within the hold; | |
| And, with a little hidden pin, | |
| Bores through his wall of gold. | |
| What are we in our fate and fall? | |
| Night, night, the jailer of us all, | 60 |
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| Hath bound in her funereal chain | |
| The beautiful, the brave, | |
| The ignorant of human pain, | |
| The lord of land and wave, | |
| The shepherd of his people’s rest, | 65 |
| The ever and the wholly blest. | |
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| And straight among the courtier bands | |
| The hired lamentings rise; | |
| And there is striking of fair hands, | |
| And weeping of bright eyes; | 70 |
| And the long locks of women fall | |
| In sorrow round that gorgeous hall. | |
| |
| And last, upon some solemn day, | |
| The tomb of all his race | |
| Hath opened for his shivering clay | 75 |
| The dismal dwelling-place, | |
| The dim abyss of sculptured stones, | |
| The prison-house of royal bones. | |
| |
| These are the honors of the dead! | |
| But, as I wander by, | 80 |
| And gaze upon yon marble bed | |
| With lost and loitering eye, | |
| Till back upon my awestruck soul | |
| A thousand ages seem to roll, | |
| |
| I muse on thee, whom this recess | 85 |
| Hides in its pathless gloom, | |
| Thy glory and thy nothingness, | |
| Thine empire and thy tomb; | |
| And call thee, Psammis, back to light, | |
| Back from the veil of death and night. | 90 |
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| Come from thy darkness! all too long | |
| Thou lingerest in the grave; | |
| Thou, the destroyer of the strong, | |
| The powerful to save: | |
| Come from thy darkness; set again | 95 |
| Thy saffron sandal on the plain; | |
| |
| And bid thy golden sceptre gleam | |
| Its wonted radiance yet; | |
| And let thy bright tiara beam | |
| Around thy locks of jet; | 100 |
| And play the king upon this spot | |
| As when—alas! thou listenest not! | |
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| Thy might hath fleeted from the day; | |
| Thy very name is hid; | |
| Yet pride hath heaped upon thy clay | 105 |
| A ponderous Pyramid; | |
| And thou art kingly still, and blest | |
| In a right royal place of rest. | |
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| O, what is this to thee or thine? | |
| Some traveller idly stalks | 110 |
| Around the tomb of all thy line, | |
| And tramples as he walks | |
| With rebel foot and reckless eye, | |
| The dust which once was majesty. | |
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| Thy portrait and thy eulogy | 115 |
| Traced by some artist hand, | |
| And all that now remains of thee, | |
| Dragged to a distant land, | |
| Must be a thing for girls to know, | |
| A jest, a marvel, and a show! * * * * * | 120 |
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