HOSE ruined shrines and towers that seem

The relics of a splendid dream,

Amid whose fairy loneliness

Nought but the lapwing's cry is heard,

Nought seen but (when the shadows flitting

Fast from the moon, unsheath its gleam)

Some purple-winged sultana sitting

Upon a column motionless,

And glittering like an idol bird!

MOORE.

ORTENTOUS Egypt! I in thee behold
And studiously examine human-kind,-
In thee the exalted temple of the arts
Was founded, high in thee they rose, in thee
Long ages saw their proudest excellence.
The Persian worshipper of sun or fire

From thee derived his creed. The arts from thee
Followed Sesostris' arms to the utmost plains

Of the scorched Orient, in caution where

Lurks the Chinese. Thou wondrous Egypt! through
Vast Hindostan thy worship and thy laws

I trace. In thee to the inquirer's gaze

Nature uncovered first the ample breast

Of science that contemplates, measuring,

Heaven's vault, and tracks the bright stars' circling course.

From out the bosom of thine opulence

And glory vast imagination spreads

Her wings. In thine immortal works I find
Proofs how sublime that human spirit is,
Which the dull atheist, depreciating,
Calls but an instinct of more perfect kind,
More active, than the never-varying brute's.
More is my being, more. Flashes in me
A ray reflected from the eternal light.
All the philosophy my verses breathe,
The imagination in their cadences,

Result not from unconscious mechanism.

EGYPT.

Thebes is in ruins, Memphis is but dust,
O'er polished Egypt savage Egypt lies;
'Midst deserts does the persevering hand
Of skilful antiquary disinter

Columns of splintered porphyry, remains
Of ancient porticos; each single one
Of greater worth, O thou immortal Rome,
Than all thou from the desolating Goth,

And those worse Vandals of the Seine, hast saved!
Buried beneath light grains of arid sand,
The golden palaces, the aspiring towers

Of Moeris, Amasis, Sesostris lie;

And the immortal pyramids contend

In durability against the world;

Planted 'midst centuries' shade, Time 'gainst their tops

Scarce grazes his ne'er-resting iron wing.

In Egypt to perfection did the arts.
Attain; in Egypt they declined, they died;
Of all that's mortal such the unfailing lot:
Only the light of science 'gainst Death's law
Eternally endures. The basis firm

Of the fair temple of geometry

Was in portentous Egypt laid. The doors

Of vasty nature by geometry

Are opened; to her fortress she conducts
With her, beneath the fervid sun,

The sage.

The globe I measure; only by her aid

Couldst thou, learned Kepler, the eternal laws

Of the fixed stars discover; and with her

Grasps the philosopher the ellipse immense,

285

IGH on the summit of the flowery steep,
Where Arno's waves in headlong fury sweep,
And lavish nature bathes in rich perfume
The myrtle's foliage and the aloe's bloom;
Thy temple, Vesta, lifts its hoary wall
In tranquil splendour o'er the dashing fall!,
The slender columns tower in fair array,

Light without weakness, lovely in decay;
Whose clustering forms with olive-chaplets crowned,
In graceful cincture gird the fabric round.

What, though wild weeds entwine their tissued shade
Where once the statesman and the poet strayed!
What, though no more the lordly dome displays
Its fair proportions to the admirer's gaze!
Still 'mid the relics lives a nameless charm,
By age unwithered, and in ruin warm ;
O'er every fragment sheds a softened grace,
And breathes a deeper grandeur round the place.
But view it not when noon's meridian glare
With envious lustre mocks the havoc there;
At that still hour when flaunting day-beams fade,
And evening mantles o'er the wild cascade;
As by the moon's pale gleam the fitful wind
Fans the light spray in links of silver twined;