Classic Poem

Circled with perfumed bands and sweet with spice,
Thou lingerest in the stupor of the tomb,
Beneath great Cheops' everlasting gloom,
With money in thy withered hand, and rice.

Wherewith to guard thy spirit from the vice
Of famished demons, harbingers of doom;
And on thy shriveled front still dwells the bloom
Of antique Egypt's palmy Paradise.

Ages have gone, and thou still hast a form,
While Earth is filled with unarisen dead;
Death heaps no horror on thy tranquil head.
Thy limbs are sweet, and night hath kept them warm,
And the dull eyes, perchance, beneath those lids,
Have seen the mighty birth of Pyramids!