XXIV. TO THE NILE. (ON of the old moon-mountains African! Stream of the Pyramid and Crocodile! We call thee fruitful, and that very while A desert fills our seeing's inward span: Nurse of swart nations since the world began, Art thou so fruitful? or dost thou beguile Those men to honour thee, who, worn with toil, Rest them a space 'twixt Cairo and Decan? O may dark fancies err! They surely do; 'Tis ignorance that makes a barren waste Of all beyond itself. Thou dost bedew Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste The pleasant sun-rise. Green isles hast thou too. And to the sea as happily dost haste. Fair plumed Syren! Queen! if far away! Begetters of our deep eternal theme, XXVI. EAD me a lesson, Muse, and speak it loud RUpon the top of Nevis, blind in mist! I look into the chasms, and a shroud Vaporous doth hide them, just so much I wist Mankind do know of hell; I look o'erhead, And there is sullen mist, even so much Mankind can tell of heaven; mist is spread Before the earth, beneath me, even such, Even so vague is man's sight of himself! Here are the craggy stones beneath my feet, Thus much I know that, a poor witless elf, I tread on them, that all my eye doth meet Is mist and crag, not only on this height, But in the world of thought and mental might! Not the wizard of the Dee "What is this? and what art thou?" Whispered I, and strove to kiss The spirit's hand, to wake his eyes; Up he started in a trice: "I am Lycidas," said he, “Fam❜d in funʼral minstrelsy! This was architectur'd thus By the great Oceanus! Here his mighty waters play |