Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79.
To an Egyptian Mummy
By Horace Smith (1779–1849)A
In Thebes’s streets, three thousand years ago!
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous!
Thou hast a tongue,—come, let us hear its tune!
Thou ’rt standing on thy legs, above ground, mummy
Revisiting the glimpses of the moon,—
Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,
But with thy bones, and flesh, and limbs, and features!
To whom should we assign the Sphinx’s fame?
Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect
Of either pyramid that bears his name?
Is Pompey’s Pillar really a misnomer?
Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?
By oath, to tell the mysteries of thy trade;
Then say, what secret melody was hidden
In Memnon’s statue, which at sunrise played?
Perhaps thou wert a priest; if so, my struggles
Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles!
Hath hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass;
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer’s hat;
Or doffed thine own, to let Queen Dido pass;
Or held, by Solomon’s own invitation,
A torch at the great temple’s dedication!
Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled;
For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled:
Antiquity appears to have begun
Long after thy primeval race was run.
Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen,
How the world looked when it was fresh and young,
And the great deluge still had left it green;
Or was it then so old that history’s pages
Contained no record of its early ages?
Art sworn to secrecy? Then keep thy vows!
But, prithee, tell us something of thyself,—
Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house;
Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered,
What hast thou seen, what strange adventures numbered?
We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations;
The Roman Empire has begun and ended,
New worlds have risen, we have lost old nations,
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
Marched armies o’er thy tomb with thundering tread,
O’erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,—
And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?
The nature of thy private life unfold!
A heart hath throbbed beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusty cheek have rolled;
Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face?
What was thy name and station, age and race?
Imperishable type of evanescence!
Posthumous man, who quitt’st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecayed within our presence!
Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgment morning,
When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning!
If its undying guest be lost forever?
O, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure
In living virtue, that when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom!