 | Poems |  |
II.
Oracular, ever open-eyed,
Open-eyed without vision; answerless,
Yet questioning for life or death, as hath
In later days been fabled.
The scarabee, the winged globe,
And other symbols dark are known to thee,
To thee and to the dead. Perhaps the bones
Of Cheops in his firmest of all tombs,
Shook to disclose thy secret from the dust
And make men gods by knowledge of hereafter,
Shook when the priests' thick steps passed evermore
Bearing another Pharoah home
Asbestos-clad to his subterrene realm.
And did not Cleopatra's eager blood
Throb at the thought of thee,
While her wide purple flaunted in the sun,
And the thick smoke of her perfumes was borne
From Cidnus to the waste, where now
The camel's tufted limb in thirsty march
By Moslem pipe is cheered.
Open-eyed without vision; answerless,
Yet questioning for life or death, as hath
In later days been fabled.
The scarabee, the winged globe,
And other symbols dark are known to thee,
To thee and to the dead. Perhaps the bones
Of Cheops in his firmest of all tombs,
Shook to disclose thy secret from the dust
And make men gods by knowledge of hereafter,
Shook when the priests' thick steps passed evermore
Bearing another Pharoah home
Asbestos-clad to his subterrene realm.
And did not Cleopatra's eager blood
Throb at the thought of thee,
While her wide purple flaunted in the sun,
97
From Cidnus to the waste, where now
The camel's tufted limb in thirsty march
By Moslem pipe is cheered.
The winged seeds of autumn die amidst
The whirling sand-waste. Not beneath thy shade
The sower walks. While the years ever young,
Passing quick-sandall'd from the exuberant sun
Awake new wonders, and new nations rise;
And young Hope ever girdled, worshipeth
Upon the steps of Truth's too radiant shrine;
Thou sittest voiceless, without priest or prayer,
As if thou wert self-born.
The whirling sand-waste. Not beneath thy shade
The sower walks. While the years ever young,
Passing quick-sandall'd from the exuberant sun
Awake new wonders, and new nations rise;
And young Hope ever girdled, worshipeth
Upon the steps of Truth's too radiant shrine;
Thou sittest voiceless, without priest or prayer,
As if thou wert self-born.
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