University of Virginia Library

Ah! subtle cause thine overthrow hath wrought,
Who whilom sat'st the crown of circumstance,
Taking joy's tithe from every moment, glance
Upon thyself, and say, are not the powers
Of ruin sown within? Thy sister towers
Stand on in their first strength, by battle's wrack
Unbroken, by time's ever ruthless track
Scarce furrowed; what then was it that hath cast
Earth's darkness on thee, making thee at last
A sepulchre for ruin? Sad, that e'er
Man's glory should be made his sepulchre!
Yea, that one idea driven to excess
Should be its own destroyer! Thou didst press
Thy law of sole dominion questionless
Unto its furthest; thou didst give no scope
To individual purpose, interest, hope,
Those parents of endeavour; and the want
Of this one truth it was did disenchant
Thy solemn halls; thy stern unswerving code
On alien ages sunk its unmeet load,
Nor knew to fit itself to after years.
So to its rules old tyranny adheres,
The season being gone, in fell despite
Of change and progress, and forgetting quite
That man's advancing work can never die,
And all must share the immortality.

Thus mused I till the richness of the west,
Of hues immingled in a floating rest,
Showed like a melted rainbow, till adown
Fluttering in thousand stars great night had flown.
I mused; I saw the budding moon enshrined
By gentlest office of the summer wind,
With clouds to couch on; and in that still hour
Great visions stood enshapèd by the power
That works in earnest meditation: lo!
Methought the place so gloom-entranced ere now
Had met the noonlight, and a dream in dream
Fell on my soul, for all the air did seem
Enthronged with uplift shapes of tower and fane,
Each bearing strange device upon its van
Of hieroglyph; and 'neath them life again
Was multiplied in dusky throngs of men,
And from collision groups of circumstance
Sprang ever chequered; 'twas as though advance
Of onward-flowing time had never been
Since first that desert was joy's chosen scene.
For ruin was not: the great city's smoke
Swung heavy in the sky, and voices spoke
In the wide-whispering night, borne from beneath
To the upper air, far wafted on the breath
Of grief or laughter: midst a mighty throng
I entered, borne resistlessly along
By the great human concourse, through long streets
Walled by vast columns and enset with sheets
Of pale red marble; ever as I went
The wonder grew, for all the crowd upsent
Red pointed flames of torchlight to the sky,
As on they marched beneath emblazonry
Hung high from palace roof or pillar tall,
As suited ancient Thebes upon a festival.

There were vast forms of calm eternal lines,
That brooded ever upon guarded shrines;
There were slight nameless creatures with scythed wings,
Embodied thoughts and delicatest things
In fretwork, whereon ever flitted past
Warm hurried glows and moving shadows cast
From torches, and made thinner by the moon;
Unto a temple huge the crowd rolled on,
And passed between its valves of crudded gold,
Into a four-square court wide to enfold
The vastest throng that e'er to worship passed,
Round which went curtains always interlaced,
From shaft to shaft wide floating; and entraced
With tender curves of richest broidery,
That showed upon the clear and moony sky.
O'erhead the fane loomed hugely, and in front
Two doors of inwrought glory nigh a font
O'erdrooped by heavy-leavèd orient trees,
Drew all eyes towards them; for the mysteries
Of Egypt's greatest god were shrinèd there.

Now when the joyous torches sunken were,
And the glad shoutings hushed for reverence,
And one sole voice was telling how immense
The glory and the terror and the wrath,
And prayer was breathing thoughts unuttered forth,
Back I withdrew me from the golden glare,
Back from the awèd throng, apart to where
Was only moonlight in a quiet street.
And there the far-off echoes did I meet
Of the full-throated response, and stray gleams
Of magic lights, and heard the voice of streams.
The broad-breast river ran through floating shades,
Lapping sheer blocks of granite, colonnades
That high upheld long rows of palaces;
And on its eddies glanced light pinnaces
With lamps and wafts of music: on I hied,
Methought in silence, lone and unespied,
Beneath vast groves of sleeping foliage,
The stars among their branches; soft umbrage
Moon-flung on sheeny fountains, where there lay
Enwalled spaces widened to embay
Quaint plots of greeness: then with sudden change
Methought I was amid an endless range
Of palace fronts, tall shafts, and long arcades,
And slabbed steps that led through balustrades
Of columns twin on either hand, which spread
Into an archèd roof high overhead
Through all the aislèd length; each floor was paven
With level squares of marble, gem-engraven,
Which chilled the moonbeams streaming over them;
And on the doors was wealth of gold and gem,
A solemn wealth, which gave to the moonlight
Rich molten gleams; and fountain rillets bright,
Jetted from marble stems by water elves,
Came spreaded over smooth and level shelves,
Wave rippling over wave; and thence they fell
With ceaseless murmur and a gentle swell
Unto the marble limits of their lake.
Thus momently did I myself betake
Through golden vestibules and galleries
Into wide palace courts and breadth of terraces:
Till in the midst of this wide loveliness
Close sandalled forms about me 'gan to press,
And I was in amongst the throng again:
And that great heart, whence through the whole domain
Of Egypt, life was pulsed, throbbed mightily,
In its primeval strength before mine eye.

But now these visions warm began to pale,
Gradual as fogbank parting from a vale;
The night was sinking, and the stars were dim,
And soon the morning light began to swim
Slow through the eastern port with saddening gleam;
A hundred fountains twisted the first beam
In crystal writhings, then all straight were gone,
And all the show, and I was left alone.