Sonnets Of Old Egypt

I     The Sphinx     The spires of sand spring up at every gust     That bids them dance and scatter and lays them low:     He sits impassive, as the ages flow     And bear superbly the mirage of lust.     The moonbright steel he has witnessed redden and rust,     He has seen storm-proud deep-rooted empires grow,     And watched victorious gods flash forth and go;     And still before him spins the aspiring dust.     What has he seen in that hoar-centuried land     More strange and dreadful in its long delight     Of vain hope-haunted ever-starting quest     Than I can follow across this burning sand     Wherefrom the dizzying phantoms take their flight     Within the compass of a wanderers breast?     II     Nicholson Museum: Exhibit 32     The curious look and pass, beholding naught     But yellow skin and small contorted toes:     I see a burning wilderness of woes     And stagger through its quivering air distraught.     I know the paradise a baby wrought     Of old where still the dear blue river flows,     And theres a crouching fear within that knows     To what a desperate havoc it was brought.     Dear Isis, have you not heard Horus sing     His infant ditties, kissed his radiant head,     And laughed at legs that learned to leap and run?     Forget it not. My heart in offering     Lies bare before you; take it, Queen, and spread     Thy sheltering wings about my little son.     III     Nefert     The gaudy pageant of the ages hies     Down the dim years, yet many a look is cast     That calls us dumbly, from the abysmal past,     In love that lives amid a world that dies.     I thrill to look on Neferts friendly eyes,     Mad to recall the night I saw her last,     And yet across that memory has the blast     Whirled the deep desert sand of centuries.     Forgive if I forget thee now, my sweet,     If other eyes have led me to the source     Wherefrom the thirsting heart draws sustenance.     Can pallid marble feel my pulses beat?     We approach the limit of our dusty course     When hearts must live on store of old romance.     IV     Shu     Spread on the desert, Seb of mighty thew     Felt cloudy hair, trailed by the evening breeze,     Tingling along each nerve, as by degrees     Nut bowed above him, till his brown arms drew     Her body upon his; so, all night through,     The desert bloomed in starry ecstasies,     Till, even as she sighed in overburdened ease,     Between them thrust the radiant arm of Shu.     Yet they are of the gods, and evermore     Their joy renews itself when earth and sky     Are all one substance in the odorous gloom.     But when two lovers drain their little store     Of mortal bliss and yet are thirsting, why     Inflict on us thy peremptory doom?     V     Khonsu     Have I not smiled and kept the world at bay,     Given my friends the joy that dried my tears     And left a savour of salt, and filled the years     With desolate wreckage of each yesterday?     O Khonsu, with uplifted hands I pray,     O Master of Love, give respite to my fears;     Before the dust is in my eyes and ears,     Grant me thy light upon the darkening way.     He gazes mildly from the crescent moon;     The sea grows silent and its shimmering space     Is wave upon wave of sand beyond all sight;     I stretch my arms to take whateer the boon,     And feel imagined kisses on my face,     Lonely amid the desert of the night.