Pallid as she, the young, devoted Bride
Of the fierce NILE, when, deckt in all the pride
Of nuptial pomp, she sinks into his tide.[1]
And while the wretched maid hung down her head,
And stood as one just risen from the dead
Amid that gazing crowd, the fiend would tell
His credulous slaves it was some charm or spell
Possest her now,--and from that darkened trance
Should dawn ere long their Faith's deliverance.
Or if at times goaded by guilty shame,
Her soul was roused and words of wildness came,
Instant the bold blasphemer would translate
Her ravings into oracles of fate,
Would hail Heaven's signals in her flashing eyes
And call her shrieks the language of the skies!
But vain at length his arts--despair is seen
Gathering around; and famine comes to glean
All that the sword had left unreaped;--in vain
At morn and eve across the northern plain
- ↑ "A custom still subsisting at this day, seems to me to prove that the Egyptians formerly sacrificed a young virgin to the God of the Nile; for they now make a statue of earth in shape of a girl, to which they give the name of the Betrothed Bride, and throw it into the river."--Savary.
