 | Egypt |  |
69
TEARS
There is a river, ordained to roam
Where never the slow kine feed,
Where never the warbler builds her home,
By vale or forest or mead.
Where never the slow kine feed,
Where never the warbler builds her home,
By vale or forest or mead.
Barren and sullen and black it creeps,
Bearing not boat nor barge;
Nothing is fashioned within its deeps,
Nothing along its marge.
Bearing not boat nor barge;
Nothing is fashioned within its deeps,
Nothing along its marge.
70
Never the city it leaps to lave,
Never o'erbrims its side
To moisten the meadow; across its wave
Never the swallows glide.
Never o'erbrims its side
To moisten the meadow; across its wave
Never the swallows glide.
Flowerless glimmers its pallid edge,
Treeless shimmers its sheen;
Never its shallows are set with sedge,
Never with rushes green.
Treeless shimmers its sheen;
Never its shallows are set with sedge,
Never with rushes green.
Salt from its birth in the marsh of wrong,
Bitter with tribute rills,
Its home is not in the sea, its song
Is not of the pure, blue hills.
Bitter with tribute rills,
Its home is not in the sea, its song
Is not of the pure, blue hills.
71
Shrouded in mist, it makes its moan
Of the burden of mortal years,
Like the cry of a child, in the night, alone;
And men have called it “Tears.”
Of the burden of mortal years,
Like the cry of a child, in the night, alone;
And men have called it “Tears.”
| Egypt | |