Page:The poetical works of James Thomson (1895), Volume 2.djvu/17

 Rh And many myriads serve a single lord :

So was it when the pyramids were reared,

And sphinxes and huge columns and wrought stones

Were haled long lengthening leagues adown my banks

By hundreds groaning with the stress of toil

And groaning under the taskmaster's scourge,

With many falling foredone by the way,

Half-starved on lentils, onions, and scant bread ;

So is it now with these poor fellaheen

To whom my annual bounty brings fierce toil

With scarce enough of food to keep-in life.

They build mud huts and spacious palaces ;

And in the huts the moiling millions dwell,

And in the palaces their sumptuous lords

Pampered with all the choicest things I yield :

Most admirable, most pitiable Man.

Also their peoples ever are at war,

Slaying and slain, burning and ravaging,

And one yields to another and they pass,

While I flow evermore the same great Nile,

The ever-young and ever-ancient Nile :

The swarthy is succeeded by the dusk,

The dusky by the pale, the pale again

By sunburned turbaned tribes long-linen-robed :

And with these changes all things change and pass,

All things but Me and this old Land of mine,