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33
GOING HOME,
Or a Death in the Thebaid.
The ancient river glimmered in its bed,High overhead the stars of Egypt burned,
When our slow-dying Edith joined the dead;
She whom the Arab and the Nubian mourned:
How in the shadow of old Thebes we wept,
And down the long-drawn Nile from day to day!
Her sweet face gone—her bright hair hid away—
Save what the ring or gleaming locket kept;
And, when we felt the Midland waters rise
Beneath our keel, and England nearer come—
'Mid our forecasting questions and replies,
Back came the sorrow like a sad surprise;
Those dear white cliffs would never greet her eyes.
Nor her cheek flush, to find herself at home.
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