Classic Poem

EGYPT .

Monarch o'er countless leagues of palm and sand,
What are to thee an unknown God's decrees?
Numberless as thy sphinx's granite gries,
The hosts of Egypt wait thy first command.

Thou scorn'st the plagues that desolate thy land,
The awful darkness and the foul disease;
With thy first-born clasped dead upon thy knees,
I see thee gaze, inflexible and grand!

Whene'er I hear thy puissant name, I dream
Of tapering obelisks and festal halls,
Bathed by the lotused Nile; the pomp and awe
Of Phtâ's dim temples where gold altars gleam;
And, beneath Pyramids where the fierce sun falls,
I see pale, haggard Hebrews toil with straw.