THE NILE.
A FRAGMENT.
Thrice blest the man whose ploughshare cleaves the plain
Of fertile Egypt: he nor cloud nor rain
Invokes, nor northern blasts that 'coldly blow,
Nor hails the light of Iris' humid bow.
The favour'd region has no need of these;
It scorns the showers, it recks not of the breeze;
Content to see perpetual plenty smile
From its own waters, its redundant Nile.
Inured to heats of Cancer's burning zone,
He swiftly rushes from a source unknown;
Long vainly sought, and undiscovered still,
Which none have seen a fount, or issuing rill.
No witness stood by that mysterious birth,
Where other heavens o'er-arch another earth;
Whence forth he springs his wand'ring course to run,
Where Æthiop kingdoms blacken in the sun;
O'er the parch'd lands his cooling dews bestows,
And slakes the thirst of nations as he flows.
