Fringilla: Some Tales in Verse by Richard Doddridge Blackmore (black books to read TXT) 📖

Asp, and slug, and toad, whose gem
Outlasts human diadem.


VIII

Therefore hath the priest-procession
Causeway clean of sandal-wood;
That no foul thing make transgression
On the votive maiden's blood.

Pure of blood and soul, she standeth
Where the marble gauge demandeth,
Marble pillar, with black style,
Record of the rising Nile,

White-robed priests around her kneeling,
Ibis-banner floating high,
Conchs, and drums, and sistrals pealing,
And Sesostris standing nigh.


IX

He, whose kingdom-city stretches
Further than our eyesight fetches;
Every street it wanders down
Larger than a regal town;

Built, when each man was a giant,
When the rocks were mason's stones,
When the oaks were osiers pliant,
And the mountains scarcely thrones;

City, whose Titanic portals
Scorn the puny modern mortals,
In thy desert winding-sheet,
Sacred from our insect feet.


X

Thebes No-Amon, hundred-gated,
Every gate could then unfold
Cavalry ten thousand, plated,
Man and horse, in solid gold.

Glancing back through serried ranges,
Vivid as his own phalanges,
Every captain might espy
Equal host in sculpture vie;

Down Piromid vista gazing,
Ten miles back from every gate,
He can see that temple blazing,
Which the world shall never mate.


XI

But the Nile-flood, when it swelleth,
Recks not man, nor where he dwelleth;
And--e'en while Sesostris reigns--
Scarce five cubits man attains.

Lo, the darkening river quaileth,
Like a swamp by giant trod,
And the broad commotion waileth,
Stricken with the hand of God I

When the rushing deluge raging
Flung its flanks, and shook the staging,
Priesthood, cowering from the brim,
Chanted thus its faltering hymn.


XII

"Ocean sire, the earth enclasping,
Like a babe upon thy knee,
In thy cosmic cycle grasping
All that hath been, or shall be;

"Thou, that art around and over
All we labour to discover;
Thou, to whom our world no more
Than a shell is on thy shore;

"God, that wast Supreme, or ever
Orus, or Osiris, saw;
God, with whom is no endeavour,
But thy will eternal law:


XIII

"We, who keep thy feasts and fastings,
We, who live on thy off-castings,
Here in low obeisance crave
Rich abundance of thy wave.

"Seven years now, for some transgression,
Some neglect, or outrage vile,
Vainly hath our poor procession
Offered life, and soul to Nile.

"Seven years now of promise fickle,
Niggard ooze, and paltry trickle,
Freshet sprinkling scanty dole,
Where the roaring flood should roll.


XIV

"Therefore are thy children dwindled,
Therefore is thine altar bare;
Wheat, and rye, and millet spindled,
And the fruits of earth despair.

"Men with haggard bellies languish,
Bridal beds are strewn with anguish,
Mothers sell their babes for bread,
Half the holy kine are dead.

"Is thy wrath at last relaxing?
Art thou merciful, once more?
Yea, behold the torrent waxing!
Yea, behold the flooded shore!


XV

"Nile, that now with life-blood tidest,
And in gorgeous cold subsidest,
Richer than our victor tread
Stirred in far Hydaspes' bed;

"When thy swelling crest o'er-waveth
Yonder twenty cubit mark,
And thy tongue of white foam laveth
Borders of the desert dark,

"This, the fairest Theban maiden,
Shall be thine, with jewels laden;
Lift thy furrowed brow, and see
Lita, dedicate to thee!"


XVI

Thus he spake, and lowly stooping
O'er the Calasiris hem,
Took the holy water, scooping
With a bowl of lucid gem;

Chanting from the Bybline psalter
Touched he then her forehead altar;
Sleeking back the trickled jet,
There the marriage-seal he set.

"None of mortals dare pursue thee,
None come near thy hallowed side:
Nile's thou art, and he shall woo thee,--
Nile, who swalloweth his bride."


XVII

With despair's mute self-reliance,
She accepted death's affiance;
She, who hath no home or rest,
Shrank not from the river's breast.

Haply there she shall discover
Father, lost in wilds unknown,
Mother slain, and youthful lover,
Seen as yet in dreams alone.

Ha! sweet maid, what sudden vision
Hath dispelled thy cold derision?
What new picture hast thou seen,
Of a world that might have been?


XVIII

From Mount Seir, Duke Iram roveth,
Three renewals of the moon:
To see Egypt him behoveth,
Ere his life be past its noon.

Soul, and mind, at first fell under
Flat discomfiture of wonder,
With the Nile before him spread,
Temple-crowned, and tempest-fed!

Yet a nobler creed he owneth,
Than to worship things of space:
One true God his heart enthroneth
Heart that throbs with Esau's race.


XIX

Thus he stood, with calm eyes scorning
Idols, priests, and their adorning;
Seeing, e'en in nature's show,
Him alone, who made it so.

"God of Abraham, our Father,
Earth, and heaven, and all we see,
Are but gifts of thine, to gather
Us, thy children, back to Thee.

"All the grandeur spread before us,
All the miracles shed o'er us,
Echoes of the voice above,
Tokens of a Father's love."


XX

While of heaven his heart indited,
And his dark eyes swept the crowd,
Sudden on the maid they lighted,
Mild and haughty, meek and proud.

Rapid as the flash of sabre,
Strong as giant's toss of caber,
Sure as victor's grasp of goal,
Came the love-stroke through his soul

Gently she, her eyes recalling,
Felt that Heaven had touched their flight,
Peeped again, through lashes falling,
Blushed, and shrank, and shunned the light


XXI

Ah, what booteth sweet illusion,
Fluttering glance, and soft suffusion,
Bliss unknown, but felt in sighs,
Breast, that shrinks at its own rise?

She, who is the Nile's devoted,
Courted with a watery smile;
Her betrothal duly noted
By the bridesmaid Crocodile!

So she bowed her forehead lowly,
Tightened her tiara holy;
And, with every sigh suppressed,