I
Memphis and Karnak, Luxor, Thebes, the Nile:
Of these your letters told; and I who read
Saw loom on dim horizons Egypt's dead
In march across the desert, mile on mile,
A ghostly caravan in slow defile
Between the sand and stars; and at their head
From unmapped darkness into darkness fled
The gods that Egypt feared a little while.
There black against the night I saw them loom
With captive kings and armies in array
Remembered only by their sculptured doom,
And thought: What Egypt was are we to-day.
Then rose obscure against the rearward gloom
The march of Empires yet to pass away.