Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.
Hymn to HorusMathilde Blind (18411896)
H
The night is over and done;
Far mountains wrinkled and hoary,
Fair cities great in story,
Flash in the rising sun.
Curtains of filmy lawn,
And blossoming like roses
The Wilderness reposes
Beneath the Rose of Dawn.
Lap of heav’n’s holiest God!
From lotus-banks before us
Birds in ecstatic chorus
Fly, singing, from the sod.
Translucent morning sky,
No longer dull and pining,
With drooping wings declining,
The storks and eagles fly.
Reflects thy risen disk;
A light of gladness gushes
Thro’ kindling halls, and flushes
Each flaming Obelisk.
Vistas of columns shine
Celestial, with a tender
Rose-bloom on every slender
Papyrus-pillar’d shrine.
And under many names,
Thrice-holy son of Isis,
We worship him who rises
A Child-god fledged in flames.
Crossest the heavenly sea!
With harp-playing, with singing,
With linen robes white-clinging,
We come, fair God, to thee.
When weary of the way,
Enter our golden houses,
And with thy mystic spouses
Rest from the long, long way!