Classic Poem

Hard by the Nile, 'mid desert-sands,
King of the wild, a Lion stands, —
Yellow as are the sandy waves,
When the Simoom around him raves.

His mane a royal mantle seems,
As o'er his brawny breast it streams;
His fierce and shaggy top looks down,
Majestic, like a kingly crown.

He lifts his head and roars; — the sound
So deep and hollow murmurs round,
Through all that awe-struck wilderness,
Lake Maeris hears it well, I guess.

The spotted panther knows it well;
Off darts the tremulous gazelle;
The camel and the crocodile
Hear the dread monarch of the Nile.

Old Nile's reverberating shore
Bears far away that sullen roar;
The Pyramids send back the sound,
And echo through their vaults profound.

The brown-dried royal mummy, hid
In dust and dusk of Pyramid
For weary ages, stirs and shakes,
And from his tedious slumber wakes.

He rises in his narrow shrine: —
" Thanks, Lion, for that roar of thine!
Ah! ages long in sleep have passed, —
Thy voice awakens me at last.

" O years that I have dreamed away! —
Where are ye, golden ages, say!
When in triumphal pomp I rode,
A king, a conqueror, a god?

" Then victory's banners o'er me flew, —
Thy ancestors, O Lion, drew,
On that proud day, the festal car
That brought me back from glorious war!

" That car was gorgeous to behold;
The beam was all enchased with gold;
Both spoke and rim with pearls did shine; —
The hundred-gated Thebes was mine.

" These feet, so dry and shrivelled now,
Trod on the Indian's tawny brow, —
The frizzled hair of Moors, — the wild
And stubborn neck of Afric's child.

" Stiff linen binds a hand that held
Sway o'er the world in years of eld;
All that yon hieroglyphics say
Once glowed within this breast of clay.

" These hands upreared the mighty tomb,
That holds me in its rayless gloom;
I sat upon a throne, the while
The myriad insects raised the pile.

" Spears bristled round me; — far below,
The blackening swarms crept to and fro;
Scourged by the beadle, — lazy slave! —
The ant-tribes built their master's grave.

" The subject Nile confessed my sway,
And rocked my swift keel on its way;
Old Nile still holds his onward sweep, —
I, ages since, have sunk to sleep.

" And round me all is dark once more, " —
For now had ceased the Lion's roar.
The dead man leaned him back again;
Eternal sleep resumed her reign.