Poems by Violet Fane [i.e. M. M. Lamb] :: :: University of Virginia Library

You brought me once, from a distant land,
A sacred scarab, 'graven o'er
With mystic characters,—It bore
(You said, and turn'd it in your hand,)
A chapter from the Book of Death,
That oldest of all books,—which saith:

“Oh, my heart, that camest to me from my mother!
My heart that camest to me at my birth,—
That throbb'd within me whilst I dwelt on Earth
And took my pastime amongst living men;—
Rise not up against me now, and as a foe
Before Osiris the changeless, and those other
Divinest Rulers of the plaited beard,
For pow'r of sceptre praised and fear'd,—
Bear witness against one that was thy brother
When thou and I, together, used to go
And take our pastime amongst living men!”

And then you told how,—where the Nile winds thro'
Its fertile fields to dunes of shifting sand,—
And where the ev'ning light makes blue
The low hills of the Libyan land,
There,—hidden in the mountain's core,—
Approach'd by labyrinthian ways,—
Vast chambers,—where the dead once more
Were seen of men,—their walls upraise—

The flickering torch's fitful flame
Illuminates the haunted shade,—
The lotus-budded colonnade
Of blended stalks,—the sculptured name
Set forth, in hieroglyphic sign,
Beneath the pictured vulture-wings,
Where once,—sole monarchs of the mine,
Reposed those old Egyptian Kings.

So long ago,—So long ago,
They lived, and breathed, and held their sway,
We scarcely seem to know, to-day,
If they were gods or men!

And that last Queen,—who, erst, unstrung
And drank off the pearl to her Roman lover,—
They were so old when she was young,
Maybe she hardly could discover
Their names and stories then!

Yet is it given to us to know
And read their lineaments;—to see
The fringèd lid,—the beetling brow,
The air of majesty.
The deft embalmer's subtle skill
Hath baulk'd the worm, and turn'd the grave
Into these regal halls, where still
From pedestal to architrave
The dead men's glorious deeds survive! . . .
Here their triumphant chariots drive
To certain victory, and crush
The vanquish'd 'neath their wheels,—whilst hither
Still doth the swarthy Ethiop bring,
On bended knee, his offering,
The tribute of the “Land of Cush”
In ivory, gold, and ostrich-feather.

Here feast they,—as they did of old,
Exalted on their thrones of State,—
The cup-bearers, with cups of gold,
The fan-bearers, and minstrels wait
To serve them as they sit at meat;—
Hard by, the light-foot damsels stand,—
All starry-eyed, and fair of face,—
The hawk-head god is close at hand,
The symbol of their Royal race,
The lotus blossoms at their feet;

But all is silence! . . . Countless years have roll'd
Since their last shout of battle died away,
Still'd is the clashing of their arms for aye,
Voiceless the singers,—mute the harps of gold! . . .

Thus the departed rulers of the land
Reposed in noiseless solitude, and slept
Untroubled,—save when the lithe serpent crept
At parched Midsummer, o'er the whispering sand,
To take his rest among the Kingly throng,
Or when,—at sunset,—from the fretted roof
The great bats flutter'd;—but no sounds of Earth
Heaving in travail, or in transient mirth
Disturb'd their rest,—no creak of strain'd shadóof
Nor burial wail, nor boatman's evening song.

And here it was that, in the hollow breast
Of a dead Pharaoh,—seal'd to pulseless calm,
In bitumen and aromatic balm,
My scarabæus had his hidden nest
And waited patiently the promised end.
It was his sacred privilege to plead
With the high Gods for the offending heart
That once had beat there, and thus play the part
Of Mediator in its hour of need,
Standing the dead man's advocate and friend.

For, ah, what smould'ring passions may have lain
Beneath this scarab, or in loosen'd fires
Burst forth to waste and ravage! . . . Wild desires,
With pride of State, and lust of conquer'd gain! . . .
For these he might have pleaded,—not in vain,
But, as it chanced,—from the barbaric North
In some remote, iconoclastic, age,
The spoiler came, who (with his Embassage
All unachieved,) dragged the poor scarab forth
Into a world where all his gods were slain.

Oh hapless scarab, that in days gone by
Wert wont to lie
In those high halls of ancient sepulture
Nestling, secure,
In the still'd chamber of a monarch's breast,
By his supreme behest
Accredited to gods that haunt no more
Old Nile's degenerate shore,
Since the invading desecrator came
With sword and flame,
The ravisher of tombs,—and changed thy fate,
How art thou fallen from thine high estate!

I take thee,—unresisting,—in my hand;—
A lumpish thing, wrought out of sea-grey stone,—
Conventional;—no beetle that on land
Or sea, or river, ever yet was known!
Thou mightest be a tortoise,—by thy size,—
Thy wings are scored like the eternal hills;—
Thou seem'st to me superlatively wise
And old, and staid, and numb to earthly ills!

Yet, as becomes an Envoy of great Kings
To greater gods,—a consequential air
Seems to possess thee, as thy fluted wings
Fold down above the mummied Pharaohs' pray'r.

How art thou fallen from thine high estate
“Alas, poor scarab!” I exclaim once more,—
Sold into bondage on this Wintry shore,
Serving in exile as a paper-weight!

But what, mayhap, he wist not, when he came
To do this penal service, and in shame,
Humiliation, and dissembled wrath,
To perch upon, and press, from dawn to dark,
The written scroll,—wherein each crabbèd mark
Was fraught with mystery;—she that did possess
And mould him to her will,—his task-mistress,—
Was a disciple of the learnèd Thoth
The god of Letters. In the solitude
Of her barbaric chamber,—ere she wooed
The stuff'd and bloated head-rest of the North,
She from her pointed grey goose-quill, pour'd forth
At that lone midnight hour, an inky wave
Of inspiration on the virgin page,
Whereon she used to set her scarab slave,
Then seek her couch. As, thus, his vassalage
Thro' days and nights continued,—(being wise
With wisdow of the Ages, and discreet

Even beyond his years,) the mysteries
Wherewith his new existence seem'd replete
Stood forth reveal'd, and when he took his seat
Upon the summit of his paper throne,—
(So she believes who claims him as her own,)
He could mark, learn, and inwardly digest
Each garner'd thought, and, haply, recognise
Some of those passions that, in Pharaoh's breast
His mission 'twas to plead for;—Wild desires
Smould'ring unstifled, with intent to prize
The gift before the Giver, and his due
Wrest from the Lord of All,—with loosen'd fires
Of envy,—hatred,—vain imaginings
And vainer loves! Those old things, ever new,
That have survived all Egypt's gods and Kings!
“Oh, my heart, that camest to me from my mother!” . . .
My erring human heart, that, as a foe
May rise against me! If the scarab's pray'r
Savours too much of gods we have outgrown,
To soar aloft through that sublimer air
Which separates us from the Eternal Throne,
May it, at least, prove pure enough to go
And plead for me on Earth with Man, my brother!

So, when to you,—the truest and the best
Of all surviving friends,—I dedicate
The wand'ring fancies that were lately press'd
By this,—your gift,—grown up into a book
For your acceptance;—that your eyes may look
With more indulgence on the thoughts express'd
So faultily,—my sacred paper-weight
I set upon the cover,—like a crest,
With its pathetic pray'r inviolate.

The ancient Egyptians reposed upon a wooden rest or head-stool.