Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79.
Egypt
By Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907)F
I seem in some waste solitude to stand
Once ruled of Cheops: upon either hand
A dark illimitable desert lies,
Sultry and still,—a realm of mysteries;
A wide-browed Sphinx, half buried in the sand,
With orbless sockets stares across the land,
The woefulest thing beneath these brooding skies,
Where all is woeful, weird-lit vacancy.
’T is neither midnight, twilight, nor moonrise.
Lo! while I gaze, beyond the vast sand-sea
The nebulous clouds are downward slowly drawn,
And one bleared star, faint-glimmering like a bee,
Is shut in the rosy outstretched hand of Dawn.