Above the ancient waters of the Nile The mists of earth and dusk of heaven meet, Where, slow along the bank, the camel-file Moves, like a passing dream, on velvet feet; And, as the choral voices of a dream, The night sounds play their chant upon the stream.
The crane stands silent; all the fields exhale A band of fertile damp along the shore; The same moon, red and low behind the veil, That lit Old Egypt, lights for me once more The mirage of a kingdom that has been, And, through the mist, the shadow of a queen.
Rise up, O Royal Egypt, from the dusk With all the weight of tresses on thine head Heavy with golden nets and faint with musk, Girt with the lotus from the river-bed, And eyes that once, with their devouring fire, Lit for men’s hearts a sacrificial pyre.
O Serpent, by a serpent slain at last! Come through the vapourous fields with garments trailed, Embroidered with the lotus-leaf, made fast With gems; with green and Tyrian purple veiled; Turn but thy face, that I may see and know The witchcraft throned in Egypt long ago.
There is a sound of flute and wavering reed, The measured throb of falling oars that beat, A tall prow swimming noiseless through the weed, The shifting glimmer of a silken sheet; And, from the dim luxuriance drawn nigh, The feet of Royal Egypt passing by.
And now, her foot is set upon the barge, The flutes play up, the fans ply to and fro, The ripples, dying at the river-marge, Curl, as the prow swings out upon the flow, And its retreating music and its state Leave, once again, the dusk inviolate:
Only, across the tillage lying low, There comes the creak of well-wheels working late.
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