Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79. | | | | Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia: Karnak | | Karnak | | Joseph Ellis (1815–1891) |
| | (From Caesar in Egypt)
SO, with a troop of friends and Theban slaves, | |
| Led by an aged hierophant, well-versed | |
| In mystic records of Egyptus’ land, | |
| And hierogrammat of linguistic skill,— | |
| Cæsar went forth, in sober merriment, | 5 |
| To view the skeletons of ages fled,— | |
| The giant bones, denoting giant minds; | |
| Those unexampled temples sempitern— | |
| Luxor and Karnak, twain, yet linked in one | |
| By avenue of sphinxes, multiplied, | 10 |
| To endless view;—and first to Luxor, built | |
| By Amunothph; passing through the propylon huge, | |
| Prefaced by two tall obelisks, and two | |
| Gigantic figures human-form; beyond, | |
| The temple-tomb of Ozymandias, | 15 |
| And countless gaunt mementos of the past. | |
| But when, mid lines of sphinx and obelisk, | |
| To Karnak Cæsar came, he said, amazed, | |
| “Too wonderful this vision to be real,— | |
| The work of necromancy, or a dream! | 20 |
| This grand confusion, these colossal forms, | |
| This wide extent of ruin; how could die | |
| Men who had life for this? they could not die; | |
| Fate fails to cast them to oblivion;— | |
| Here in their deeds they live; these silent walls, | 25 |
| These graven monoliths, with meaning rife, | |
| These prostrate statues, and these columns stark, | |
| Speak, from remotest time, to us who live. | | | | |
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