Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79. | | | | Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia: Ipsamboul (Abu-Simbel), Nubia | | Abu Simbel | | John Bruce Norton (1815–1883) |
| | | THIS is the shrine of Silence, sunk and hewn | |
| Deep in the solid rock: its pillars rise | |
| From floor to roof, like giants, with fixed eyes | |
| And palms crossed on their breasts; e’en at mid-noon | |
| A dim light falls around, as though the moon | 5 |
| Were peering at the temple from the skies. | |
| The foot falls soundless on the sand, that lies | |
| A carpet by long centuries thick-strewn. | |
| The mighty shapes that guard the solemn pile, | |
| Unburied, after ages, from the tomb | 10 |
| Heaped on them by the blast of the simoom, | |
| Sit at the portal, gazing, night and day, | |
| O’er the lone desert, stretching far away, | |
| And on the eternal flood of Father Nile. | | | | |
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