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pound drugs and medicinal waters. In the second Pyramid are the records of the priests, written on tablets of granite,—to each priest his tablet, on which are set out the wonders of his craft and his achievements; and on the walls are figures like idols, working with their hands at all manner crafts and seated on thrones. To each pyramid there is a guardian, that keeps watch over it and guards it, to all eternity, against the ravages of time and the vicissitudes of events; and indeed the marvels of these pyramids astound all who have eyes and wit. Many are the poems that describe them, thou shalt profit no great matter thereby, and among the rest, quoth one of them:
The high resolves of kings, if they would have them to abide In memory, after them, are in the tongues of monuments.
Dost thou not see the Pyramids? They, of a truth, endure And change not for the shifts of time or chances of events.
And again:
Consider but the Pyramids and lend an ear to all They tell of bygone times and that which did of yore befall.
Could they but speak, assuredly they would to us relate What time and fate have done with first and last and great and small.
And again:
I prithee, tell me, friend of mine, stands there beneath the sky A building with the Pyramids of Egypt that can vie
In skilful ordinance? Behold, Time’s self’s afraid of them, Though of all else upon the earth ’tis dreaded, low and high.
My sight no longer rests upon their wondrous ordinance, Yet are they present evermore unto my spirit’s eye.
And again:
Where’s he the Pyramids who built? What was his tribe, His time and what the place where he was stricken dead?
The monuments survive their lords awhile; then death O’ertaketh them and they fall prostrate in their stead.
