Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79.
Abu Simbel
By John Bruce Norton (1815–1883)T
Deep in the solid rock: its pillars rise
From floor to roof, like giants, with fixed eyes
And palms crossed on their breasts; e’en at mid-noon
A dim light falls around, as though the moon
Were peering at the temple from the skies.
The foot falls soundless on the sand, that lies
A carpet by long centuries thick-strewn.
The mighty shapes that guard the solemn pile,
Unburied, after ages, from the tomb
Heaped on them by the blast of the simoom,
Sit at the portal, gazing, night and day,
O’er the lone desert, stretching far away,
And on the eternal flood of Father Nile.