If so, at any pain or cost,
Oh, tell me before all is lost!
Look deeper still: if thou canst feel,
Within thy inmost soul,
That thou hast kept a portion back,
While I have staked the whole,
Let no false pity spare the blow,
But in true mercy tell me so.
Is there within thy heart a need
That mine cannot fulfil?
One chord that any other hand
Could better wake or still?
Speak now, lest at some future day
My whole life wither and decay.
Lives there within thy nature hid
The demon-spirit, change,
Shedding a passing glory still
On all things new and strange?
It may not be thy fault alone,
But shield my heart against thine own.
Could'st thou withdraw thy hand one day
And answer to my claim,
That fate, and that to-day's mistake,
Not thou, had been to blame?
Some soothe their conscience thus; but thou
Wilt surely warn and save me now.
Nay, answer not,-I dare not hear,
The words would come too late;
Yet I would spare thee all remorse,
So comfort thee, my fate;
Whatever on my heart may fall,
Remember, I would risk it all!
ADDRESS TO THE MUMMY AT BELZONI'S EXHIBI TION.-HORACE SMITH,
AND thou hast walked about, (how strange a story!)
In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous.
Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dummy;
Thou hast a tongue,-come, let us hear its tune;
Thou'rt standing on thy legs, above ground, mummy!
Revisiting the glimpses of the moon,—
Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures.
But with thy bones, and flesh, and limbs, and features.
Tell us for doubtless thou canst recollect
To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame? Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect
Of either pyramid that bears his name?
Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer?
Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?
Perhaps thou wert a Mason, and fobidden
By oath to tell the secrets of thy trade,
Then say what secret melody was hidden
In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played?
Perhaps thou wert a priest,-if so, my struggles
Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles.
Perhaps that very hand, now pinioned flat,
Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass;
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat;
Or dotted thine own to let Queen Dido pass;
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great temple's dedication.
I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldier mauled and kunckled;
For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled:
Antiquity appears to have begun
Long after thy primeval race was run.
Thou could'st develop- if that withered tongue
Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen-
How the world looked when it was fresh and young,
And the great deluge still had left it green;
Or was it then so old that history's pages
Contained no record of its early ages?
Still silent! incommunicative elf!
Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vows;
But prithee tell us something of thyself,-
Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house;
Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered,
What hast thou seen,-what strange adventures num
Since first thy form was in this box extended
We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations;
The Roman empire has begun and ended,-
New worlds have risen, -we have lost old nations ;
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.
Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,
When the great Persian conquerer, Cambyses,
Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,—
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis;
And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?
If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold:
A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusty cheek have rolled;
Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face?
What was thy name and station, age and race?
Statue of flesh,-immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanescence!
Posthumous man, who quit'st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecayed within our presence!
Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning,
When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning!
Why should this worthless tegument endure,
If its undying guest be lost forever?
Oh, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure
In living virtue,-that when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom!
ANSWER OF THE MUMMY AT BELZONI'S EXHIBI TION.
CHILD of the later days! thy words have broken
A spell that long has bound these lungs of clay,-
For since this smoke-dried tongue of mine hath spoken
Three thousand tedious years have rolled away.
Unswathed at length, I "stand at ease" before ye,
List, then, Oh list, while I unfold my story.
ONE HUNDRED CHOICE SELECTIONS.
Thebes was my birthplace-an unrivalled city
With many gates,-but here I might declare
Some strange, plain truths, except that it were pity
To blow a poet's fabric into air;
Oh, I could read you quite a Theban lecture,
And give a deadly finish to conjecture.
But then yon would not have me throw discredit
-or on him who sung
The Iliad,-true it is, I never read it,
But heard it read when I was very young. An old blind minstrel for a trifling profit Recited parts,-I think the author of it.
All that I know about the town of Homer
Is that they scarce would own him in his day,
Were glad, too, when he proudly turned a roamer,
Because by this they saved their parish pay.
His townsmen would have been ashamed to flout him,
Had they foreseen the fuss since made about him.
One blunder I can fairly set at rest!
He says that men were once more big and bony
Than now, which is a bouncer at the best;
I'll just refer you to our friend Belzoni,
Near seven feet high; in truth a lofty figure.
-am I bigger?
Now look at me,-and tell me,-
Not half the size, but then I'm sadly dwindled;
Three thousand years with that embalming glue
Have made a serious difference, and have swindled
My face of all its beauty; there were few
Egyptian youths more gay,-behold the sequel.
Nay, smile not; you and I may soon be equal.
For this lean hand did one day hurl the lance
With mortal aim; this light, fantastic toe
Threaded the mystic mazes of the dance;
This heart has throbbed at tales of love and woe;
These shreds of raven hair once set the fashion;
This withered form inspired the tender passion.
In vain; the skilful hand and feelings warm,
The foot that figured in the bright quadrille,
The palm of genius and the mauly form,
All bowed at once to Death's mysterious will,
Who sealed me up where mummies sound are sleeping,
In cerecloth and in tolerable keeping;-
Where cows and monkeys squat in rich brocade,
And well-dressed crocodiles in painted cases,
Rats, bats, and owls, and cats in masquerade,
With scarlet flounces, and with varnished faces; Then birds, brutes, reptiles, fish, all crammed together, With ladies that might pass for well-tanned leather;
Where Rameses and Sabacon lie down,
And splendid Psammis in his hide of crust,
Princes and heroes,-men of high renown,
Who in their day kicked up a mighty dust,
Their swarthy mummies kicked up dust in number,
When huge Belzoni came to scare their slumber.
Who'd think these rusty hams of mine were seated
At Dido's table, when the wondrous tale
Of"Juno's hatred" was so well repeated?
And ever and anon the Queen turned pale.
Meanwhile the brilliant gaslights, hung above her,
Threw a wild glare upon her shipwrecked lover.
Ay, gaslights! Mock me not,-we men of yore
Were versed in all the knowledge you can mention;
Who hath not heard of Egypt's peerless lore,
Her patient toil, acuteness of invention?
Survey the proofs,-the pyramids are thriving,
Old Memuon still looks young, and I'm surviving.
A land in arts and sciences prolific,
Oh block gigantic, building up her fame,
Crowded with signs and letters hieroglyphic,
Temples and obelisks her skill proclaim!
Yet though her art and toil unearthly seem,
Those blocks were brought on railroads and by steam!
How, when, and why our people came to rear
The pyramid of Cheops,-mighty pile!-
This, and the other secrets, thou shalt hear;
I will unfold, if thou wilt stay awhile,
The history of the Sphinx, and who began it,
Our mystic works, and monsters made of granite.
Well, then, in grieyous times, when King Cephrenes,
But ah!-What's this! the shades of bards and kings
Press on my lips their fingers! What they mean is,
I am not to reveal these hidden things.
Mortal, farewell! Till Science' self unbind them,
Men must e'en take these secrets as they find them.
|