XV.

'Mid the sounds of salutation, 'mid the splendor and the balm,

Knelt the sacred child, proclaiming, with a brow of heavenly calm:

"God is God; there is none other; I his chosen Prophet am!"

TO THE NILE.

YSTERIOUS Flood, that through the silent sands

Hast wandered, century on century, Watering the length of green Egyptian lands,

Which were not, but for thee,

-

Art thou the keeper of that eldest lore,
Written ere yet thy hieroglyphs began,
When dawned upon thy fresh, untrampled shore
The earliest life of Man?

Thou guardest temple and vast pyramid,
Where the gray Past records its ancient speech;
But in thine unrevealing breast lies hid
What they refuse to teach.

All other streams with human joys and fears Run blended, o'er the plains of History: Thou tak'st no note of Man; a thousand years Are as a day to thee.

What were to thee the Osirian festivals ?

Or Memnon's music on the Theban plain ? The carnage, when Cambyses made thy halls Ruddy with royal slain?

Even then thou wast a God, and shrines were built
For worship of thine own majestic flood;
For thee the incense burned, for thee was spilt
The sacrificial blood.

And past the bannered pylons that arose
Above thy palms, the pageantry and state,
Thy current flowed, calmly as now it flows,
Unchangeable as Fate.

Thou givest blessing as a God might give,
Whose being is his bounty: from the slime
Shaken from off thy skirts the nations live,
Through all the years of Time.

In thy solemnity, thine awful calm,
Thy grand indifference of Destiny,
My soul forgets its pain, and drinks the balm
Which thou dost proffer me.

Thy godship is unquestioned still: I bring
No doubtful worship to thy shrine supreme;
But thus my homage as a chaplet fling,
To float upon thy stream!

150

HASSAN TO HIS MARE.

OME, my beauty! come, my desert darling!

On my shoulder lay thy glossy head! Fear not, though the barley-sack be

empty,

Here's the half of Hassan's scanty bread.

Thou shalt have thy share of dates, my beauty!
And thou know'st my water-skin is free:
Drink and welcome, for the wells are distant,
And my strength and safety lie in thee.

Bend thy forehead now, to take my kisses!
Lift in love thy dark and splendid eye:
Thou art glad when Hassan mounts the saddle,
Thou art proud he owns thee: so am I.

Let the Sultan bring his boasted horses,
Prancing with their diamond-studded reins;
They, my darling, shall not match thy fleetness
When they course with thee the desert-plains!

Let the Sultan bring his famous horses,

Let him bring his golden swords to me,
Bring his slaves, his eunuchs, and his harem;
He would offer them in vain for thee.

We have seen Damascus, O my beauty!
And the splendor of the Pashas there:
What's their pomp and riches? Why, I would not
Take them for a handful of thy hair!

Khaled sings the praises of his mistress,

And, because I've none, he pities me: What care I if he should have a thousand, Fairer than the morning? I have thee.

He will find his passion growing cooler,
Should her glance on other suitors fall;
Thou wilt ne'er, my mistress and my darling,
Fail to answer at thy master's call.

By and by some snow-white Nedjid stallion
Shall to thee his spring-time ardor bring;
And a foal, the fairest of the Desert,

To thy milky dugs shall crouch and cling.

Then, when Khaled shows to me his children, I shall laugh, and bid him look at thine; Thou wilt neigh, and lovingly caress me, With thy glossy neck laid close to mine.

CHARMIAN.

I.

DAUGHTER of the Sun!

Who gave the keys of passion unto thee?
Who taught the powerful sorcery
Wherein my soul, too willing to be won,

Still feebly struggles to be free,

But more than half undone?

Within the mirror of thine eyes,

Full of the sleep of warm Egyptian skies,

The sleep of lightning, bound in airy spell, And deadlier, because invisible,

I see the reflex of a feeling

Which was not, till I looked on thee:

A power, involved in mystery,

That shrinks, affrighted, from its own revealing.

II.

Thou sitt'st in stately indolence,

Too calm to feel a breath of passion start
The listless fibres of thy sense,

The fiery slumber of thy heart.

Thine eyes are wells of darkness, by the veil Of languid lids half-sealed: the pale

And bloodless olive of thy face,

And the full, silent lips that wear

A ripe serenity of grace,

Are dark beneath the shadow of thy hair.
Not from the brow of templed Athor beams
Such tropic warmth along the path of dreams;
Not from the lips of hornèd Isis flows
Such sweetness of repose!

For thou art Passion's self, a goddess too,
And aught but worship never knew ;
And thus thy glances, calm and sure,
Look for accustomed homage, and betray
No effort to assert thy sway:
Thou deem'st my fealty secure.

III.

O Sorceress! those looks unseal
The undisturbed mysteries that press
Too deep in nature for the heart to feel