Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/294

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, thou wonder of the primal age,

In the Nilotic valley long ago,

The priest of Ammon—the Memphitic sage.

Inscribed the preface to what man may know.

Upon thy granite obelisks—in tombs

Where mummied rehcs of thy great ones lie—

in the stupendous pyramids, whose rooms

Abysmal—cavernous—may time defy.

Whence were thy people, Egypt? Whence the might

And wealth of Menes, the first Theban king?

Who taught thy sacerdotal class to write

In hyeroglyphics? Did their knowledge spring

From ancient Meroe? Was the light that shone

Upon thine orient in the morn of time

Kindled by Hermes?—or a radiance thrown

Into thy valley from some western clime?

Who shall resolve the riddle?—who collate

Thy fables, and translate them into truth?

Who place thy unplaced kings, or give the date

Of those who reigned when Saturn was a youth?

That thou in age wast hoary, the long range

Of temples—tombs—sarcophagi, declare.

And thy vast superstitions, vile and strange,

Proclaim idolatry grown dotard there.

Impressive lesson! Time develops mind,

And nations by the lapse of years grow wise,

But God unknown—the human mind is blind,

And reason sinks by her attempts to rise.

God is unknown to reason. Ye might gaze

On Phre, the sun-god, till the eye would be

Confused and cloudy:—but as through a haze

Or darken'd glass, his texture we may see.

So, God of hosts, the soul may gaze on Thee:—

Jesus revealed, yet vailed the Deity.

Sometimes in the pause of busy life,

When my mind is very still.

There looks on me in mem'ry's glass,

Without the call of will,

A kind, young face from the land of youth.

And when she comes I sigh.

And my mind is held as with a spell

Of an unseen spirit nigh.

Long, long ago, in boyhood time,

She was my earliest love,

But ere the flush of maiden prime,

She joined the choir above:

Her presence gives a sign of peace;

All selfish thought is gone;

I hear her silent words awhile,

And then I am alone.

In the spirit land, hereafter,

I shall meet an angel friend,

Whose presence I shall know by thoughts.

That with my spirit blend;

She will tell me in life's pilgrimage

She oftentimes was nigh,

And looked on me from memory's glass.

Till I answer'd with a sigh.