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 Of course they embalmed you! Yet not so sweet

Were aloes and nard, as the youthful glow

Which Amenti stole when the small dark feet

Wearied of treading our world below.

Look! it was flood-time in valley of Nile,

Or a very wet day in the Delta, dear!

When your slippers tripped lightly their latest mile—

The mud on the soles renders that fact clear.

You knew Cleopatra, no doubt! You saw

Antony's galleys from Actium come.

But there! if questions could answers draw

From lips so many a long age dumb,

I would not tease you with history,

Nor vex your heart for the men which were;

The one point to learn that would fascinate me

Is, where and what are you to-day, my dear!

You died, believing in Horus and Pasht,

Isis, Osiris, and priestly lore;

And found, of course, such theories smashed

By actual fact on the heavenly shore.