Page:Livingstone in Africa.djvu/33

Land on pale quays of that so stately temple,
Sonorous with a gorgeous ritual.—
Now on a roofless column builds the stork!
Here, they believe, slumbers a mighty god,
Osiris, Love incarnate, and the Judge;
Also the Solar orb, and sacred Nile;
Who, with moon'd Isis and her little child,
Shadoweth forth a triune Deity.
His awful name none dare to breathe aloud:
An oath avails to bind for evermore
One who hath sworn "by Him that sleeps in Philæ."

Most ancient realm of all this ancient earth,²
Thought faints to sound thine hoar antiquity!
Europe and Asia were not when thy form
Brooded in solemn grandeur, as to-day,
Over dark ocean! when Dicynodon,
Ancestor of thy huge Leviathan,
Ruled over mightier seas and estuaries;
When melancholy vapours veil'd strange stars,
Ere man's wan yearning unavailing eyes
Awoke to wonder! ere the cataclysm