“Am I to dry these seas?” exclaimed the
cloud.
“No!” It went onward ’neath the
breath of God.
Green hills, which round a limpid bay
Reflected, bask in the clear
wave!
The javelin and its buffalo prey,
The laughter and the joyous
stave!
The tent, the manger! these describe
A hunting and a fishing tribe
Free as the air—their arrows
fly
Swifter than lightning through the sky!
By them is breathed the purest air,
Where’er their wanderings
may chance!
Children and maidens young and fair,
And warriors circling in the
dance!
Upon the beach, around the fire,
Now quenched by wind, now burning higher,
Like spirits which our dreams inspire
To hover o’er our trance.
Virgins, with skins of ebony,
Beauteous as evening skies,
Laughed as their forms they dimly see
In metal mirrors rise;
Others, as joyously as they,
Were drawing for their food by day,
With jet-black hands, white camels’
whey,
Camels with docile eyes.
Both men and women, bare,
Plunged in the briny bay.
Who knows them? Whence they were?
Where passed they yesterday?
Shrill sounds were hovering o’er,
Mixed with the ocean’s roar,
Of cymbals from the shore,
And whinnying courser’s
neigh.
“Is’t there?” one moment asked the
cloudy mass;
“Is’t there?” An unknown utterance
answered: “Pass!”
Whitened with grain see Egypt’s lengthened plains,
Far as the eyesight farthest space contains,
Like a rich carpet spread
their varied hues.
The cold sea north, southwards the burying sand
Dispute o’er Egypt—while the smiling
land
Still mockingly their empire
does refuse.
Three marble triangles seem to pierce the sky,
And hide their basements from the curious eye.
Mountains—with
waves of ashes covered o’er!
In graduated blocks of six feet square
From golden base to top, from earth to air
Their ever heightening monstrous
steps they bore.
No scorching blast could daunt the sleepless ken
Of roseate Sphinx, and god of marble green,
Which stood as guardians o’er
the sacred ground.
For a great port steered vessels huge and fleet,
A giant city bathed her marble feet
In the bright waters round.
One heard the dread simoom in distance roar,
Whilst the crushed shell upon the pebbly shore
Crackled beneath the crocodile’s
huge coil.
Westwards, like tiger’s skin, each separate
isle
Spotted the surface of the yellow Nile;
Gray obelisks shot upwards
from the soil.
The star-king set. The sea, it seemed to hold
In the calm mirror this live globe of gold,
This world, the soul and torchbearer
of our own.
In the red sky, and in the purple streak,
Like friendly kings who would each other seek,
Two meeting suns were shown.
