 | The Voyage of Ithobal |  |
“Crowded is Pharaoh's hall;
Columns painted and tall,
Cut from the rosy stones of Nile,
Lead to the sculptured wall;
Where the Lord of Egypt throned in state
With glad and gracious ear doth wait
To hear what story his ships have brought
From the great deed wrought
By him who sailed at the King's command
To the Dark and Dread of the Nether Land,
And have come alive from those realms of death.
‘We will hear, we will hear, what he saith’
Hath issued decree, and the King doth sit
To listen to all the marvel of it,
With Princes and priests and slaves about,
And of sailors and negroes a rout;
Yet all eyes bound
Not upon Pharaoh's face, but his
Who in the midst of this,
His brown crew kneeling anigh, recites,
While Hodo the writer writes
How he hath come and how he did go
By ways on the waters which none did know.
Columns painted and tall,
Cut from the rosy stones of Nile,
Lead to the sculptured wall;
Where the Lord of Egypt throned in state
With glad and gracious ear doth wait
To hear what story his ships have brought
From the great deed wrought
By him who sailed at the King's command
To the Dark and Dread of the Nether Land,
And have come alive from those realms of death.
‘We will hear, we will hear, what he saith’
Hath issued decree, and the King doth sit
To listen to all the marvel of it,
With Princes and priests and slaves about,
And of sailors and negroes a rout;
Yet all eyes bound
Not upon Pharaoh's face, but his
Who in the midst of this,
His brown crew kneeling anigh, recites,
9
How he hath come and how he did go
By ways on the waters which none did know.
| The Voyage of Ithobal | |