Classic Poem

Nilus! Nilus! and before them rolled
The mystic river, while a barge of gold
Lay moored with its carved prow against a pier,
From which the King embarked with all his train.
The reis on the fore-deck drew the spear
From out the ringbolt and cast off the chain,
And they were floating upon Nile the old.

Full bravely led the galley of the King,
And all at once, like flap of ibis' wing,
Flashed out the gilt and crimson-bladed oars
And lightly o'er the molten surface skimmed;
While slow unrolled the low and level shores,
Like to a landscape on a curtain limned,
And blended with the shadows, lessening.

Music was on the Nile boats: conch and horn,
Flute answering flute, while zittern and lycorn
Took up the keynote from the leading barge,
And part and counterpart in measured strain,
In gathering volume, rolled on to the marge,
The while the swelling chorus grew amain
And inland o'er the standing rice was borne.

Along the shore, as down the mystic river
Floated the King, the boughs without a shiver
Drooped in the breathless air, and ibises
And birds of scarlet plumage waded grave;
While small deer, timorous as their nature is,
And panthers, to the brink came down to lave,
But drew back as they saw the oar-blades quiver.

Along the burnished water meadow flowers
Floated, and buds with berries, which the scours
Of melted torrents, moons ago, had shred
From Afric's inland mountain range of snows,
And torn up with the rich mould from its bed
And brought to Egypt when the waters rose
To pour into her lap full harvest dowers.

The cortege passed the swamp of crocodiles,
And labyrinth of submerged bulrush isles,
With matted lilies growing on the ooze,
While round the shallow bars the eddies swum,
All changeless, as in old time when the Jews
Mustered at beat of the Egyptian drum
And laid their tale of brick upon the piles.

Upon the left bank of the river loomed
A massive wall where Pharaohs lay entombed
With their deeds vaguely limned in hieroglyph,
In tincts of vivid azure, green and red,
Ochre and vermeil,—standing stark and stiff
Their rigid forms; while 'mong the mummied dead
The frogs croaked and the woeful bittern boomed.

As they swept on they saw a form of stone
Cleaving the yellow sky-line, stern and lone
And awful, so no man might bear to dwell
'Neath its eyes glaring with unwinking lids,
As if of beings it alone could tell
The giant mystery of the pyramids
Ere centuries of sand had round them blown.

Now on the left bank of the river's flow,
Where sentinelled with watch-towers and aglow
With half-mooned vanes all flickering like jets
Uprose a city walled, in proud estate,
Full of domed roofs and tall white minarets
The King's fleet veered towards a water-gate
And anchored 'neath the walls of Cairo.