Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/275

Rh KARNAK

I

all earth's shrines this is the mightiest,

And none is elder. Pylon, obelisk,

Column enormous—seek or east or west,

No temple like to Karnak 'neath the disk

Of the far-searching sun. Since the first stone

Here lifted to the heavens its dumb appeal,

Empires and races to the dread unknown

Have past—gods great and small 'neath Time's slow wheel

Have fallen and been crusht;—the earth hath shaken

Ruin on ruin—desolate, dead, forsaken.

II

Since first these stones were laid, the solid world,

Ay, this whole, visible, infinite universe,

Hath shifted on its base; suns have been hurled

From heaven; the ever-circling spheres rehearse

A music new to men. Yet still doth run

This river, throbbing life through all its lands;

Those desert mountains lifted to the sun

Live as of old; and these devouring sands;

And, under the changing heavens, amazed, apart—

Still, still the same the insatiate human heart.

III

And Thou, Eternal, Thou art still the same;

Thou unto whom the first, sad, questioning face

Yearned, for a refuge from the insentient frame

Of matter that doth grind us; seeking grace

From powers imagined 'gainst the powers we know;—

Some charm to avert the whirlwind, bring the tide