Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse | Page 3

dreams alone.
Ha! sweet maid, what sudden vision
Hath dispelled thy cold derision?

What new picture hast thou seen,
Of a world that might have been?
XVIII
From Mount Seir, Duke Iram roveth,
Three renewals of the moon:

To see Egypt him behoveth,
Ere his life be past its noon.
Soul, and mind, at first fell under
Flat discomfiture of wonder,
With
the Nile before him spread,
Temple-crowned, and tempest-fed!
Yet a nobler creed he owneth,
Than to worship things of space:
One
true God his heart enthroneth
Heart that throbs with Esau's race.
XIX
Thus he stood, with calm eyes scorning
Idols, priests, and their
adorning;
Seeing, e'en in nature's show,
Him alone, who made it so.
"God of Abraham, our Father,
Earth, and heaven, and all we see,

Are but gifts of thine, to gather
Us, thy children, back to Thee.

"All the grandeur spread before us,
All the miracles shed o'er us,

Echoes of the voice above,
Tokens of a Father's love."
XX
While of heaven his heart indited,
And his dark eyes swept the crowd,

Sudden on the maid they lighted,
Mild and haughty, meek and
proud.
Rapid as the flash of sabre,
Strong as giant's toss of caber,
Sure as
victor's grasp of goal,
Came the love-stroke through his soul
Gently she, her eyes recalling,
Felt that Heaven had touched their
flight,
Peeped again, through lashes falling,
Blushed, and shrank,
and shunned the light
XXI
Ah, what booteth sweet illusion,
Fluttering glance, and soft suffusion,

Bliss unknown, but felt in sighs,
Breast, that shrinks at its own
rise?
She, who is the Nile's devoted,
Courted with a watery smile;
Her
betrothal duly noted
By the bridesmaid Crocodile!
So she bowed her forehead lowly,
Tightened her tiara holy;
And,
with every sigh suppressed,
Clasped her hands on passion's breast.
PART II
I
Twice the moon hath waxed and wasted,
Lavish of her dew-bright
horn;
And the wheeling sun hath hasted
Fifty days, towards
Capricorn.

Thebes, and all the Misric nation,
Float upon the inundation;
Each
man shouts and laughs, before
Landing at his own house door.
There the good wife doth return it,
Grumbling, as she shows the dish,

Chervil, basil, chives, and burnet
Feed, instead of seasoning, fish.
II
Palm trees, grouped upon the highland,
Here and there make pleasant
island;
On the bark some wag hath wrote--
"Who would fly, when
he can float?"
Udder'd cows are standing--pensive,
Not belonging to that ilk;
How
shall horn, or tail defensive,
Keep the water from their milk?
Lo, the black swan, paddling slowly,
Pintail ducks, and sheldrakes
holy,
Nile-goose flaked, and herons gray,
Silver-voiced at fall of
day!
III
Flood hath swallowed dikes and hedges,
Lately by Sesostris planned;

Till, like ropes, its matted edges
Quiver on the desert sand.
Then each farmer, brisk and mellow,
Graspeth by the hand his fellow;

And, as one gone labour-proof,
Shakes his head at the drowned
shadoof
Soon the Nuphar comes, beguiling
Sedgy spears, and swords around,

Like that cradled infant smiling,
Whom, the royal maiden found.
IV
But the time of times foe wonder,
Is when ruddy sun goes under;

And the dusk throws, half afraid,
Silver shuttles of long shade.

Opens then a scene, the fairest
Ever burst on human view;
Once
behold, and thou comparest
Nothing in the world thereto.
While the broad flood murmurs glistening
To the moon that hangeth
listening--
Moon that looketh down the sky,
Like an aloe-bloom on
high--
V
Sudden conch o'er the wave ringeth!
Ere the date-leaves cease to
snake,
All, that hath existence, springeth
Into broad light,
wide-awake.
As at a window of heaven thrown up,
All in a dazzling blaze are
shown up,
Mellowing, ere our eyes avail,
To some soft enchanter's
tale.
Every skiff a big ship seemeth,
Every bush with tall wings clad;

Every man his good brain deemeth
The only brain that is not mad.
VI
Hark! The pulse of measured rowing,
And the silver clarions blowing,

From the distant darkness, break
Into this illumined lake.
Tis Sesostris, lord of nations,
Victor of three continents,
Visiting
the celebrations,
Priests, and pomps, and regiments.
Kings, from Indus, and Araxes,
Ister, and the Boreal axes,
Horsed
his chariot to the waves,
Then embarked, his galley-slaves.
VII
Glittering stands the giant royal,
Four tall sons are at his back;

Twain, with their own corpses loyal,
Bridged the flames Pelusiac.

As he passeth, myriads bless him,
Glorious Monarch all confess him,

Sternly upright, to condone
No injustice, save his own.
He, well-pleased, his sceptre swingeth,
While his four sons strike the
gong;
Till the sparkling water ringeth
Joy and laughter, joke and
song.
VIII
Ah, but while loud merry-making
Sets the lights and shadows
shaking,
While the mad world casts away
Every thought that is not
gay,
Hath not earth, our sweet step-mother,
Very different scene hard by,

Tossing one, and trampling other,
Some to laugh, and some to
sigh?
Where the fane of Hathor Iowereth,
And the black Myrike
embowereth,
Weepeth one her life gone by;
Over young, oh death,
to die!
IX
Nay, but lately she was yearning
To be quit of life's turmoil,
In the
land of no returning,
Where all travel ends, and toil.
What temptations now entice her?
What hath made the world seem
nicer?
Whence the charm, that strives anew
To prolong this last
adieu?
Ah, her heart can understand it,
Though her tongue can ne'er explain:

Let yon granite Sphinx demand it--
Riddle, ever solved in vain.
X
No constraint of hands hath bound her,
Not a