And what are these? in cold and cloud

The motley pageant flies!

Weep for the weakness of the proud,

The follies of the wise!

Ever within the golden ring

That rounds the temples of a king,

Death, lord of all beneath the sky,
Holdeth his stubborn court;
And, as he gives to Royalty
Its momentary sport,

Points his wan finger all the while
With shaking head, and bitter smile;

And at the last the Phantom thin
Leaps up within the hold;
And, with a little hidden pin,

Bores through his wall of gold.
What are we in our fate and fall?—
Night, Night, the jailer of us all,

Hath bound in her funereal chain
The beautiful, the brave,

The ignorant of human pain,

The lord of land and wave,

The shepherd of his people's rest,
The ever and the wholly blest.

εὐθὺ δ' ἐν δόμοισιν ὄρωρε πικρον οὐλιοῦ γόου νέφος ἐν δὲ δουπεῖ

(ὡς μάταν) κτύπημα χερῶν· πίτνει δ' ἀ

μύγματα χαίτας

ἱμέρῳ. λευκὸν δέ δέμας θανόντος σᾶμα λευκὸν ἐνδέχεται, τυράννων ὀστέων ἀγανὸν ἕδος, νεκρῶν πε

λώριον ἕρκος.

ταῦτα μὲν νεκρῶν γέρας εστ'. ἐγώ δὲ εἰσορῶν δῶ μαρμάρεον, παλαιῶν

μνάμαθ ̓ ἡρώων, μύχατ' ἐν σκοτεινᾷ

κείμενα νυκτί,

Ψάμμι, σᾶς ἀρχᾶς ἔτι σῶν τε τιμῶν ανάσομαι· κλυταῖς ἐπέων ἀοιδαῖς Ψάμι, σὰν ψυχὰν ἐνὶ νηνέμοις προσφθέγξομαι ὄρφναις.

And straight among the courtier bands

The hired lamentings rise ;

And there is striking of fair hands,

And weeping of bright eyes;
And the long locks of women fall
In sorrow round that gorgeous Hall.

And last, upon some solemn day,
The tomb of all his race
Hath opened for his shivering clay
The dismal dwelling-place,
The dim abyss of sculptured stones,
The prison-house of royal bones.

These are the honours of the dead!

But, as I wander by,

And gaze upon yon marble bed
With lost and loitering eye,
Till back upon my awe-struck soul
A thousand ages seem to roll,

I muse on thee, whom this recess
Hides in its pathless gloom,
Thy glory and thy nothingness,

Thine empire and thy tomb;

And call thee, Psammis, back to light,

Back from the veil of Death and Night.

ἐλθέ, κικλήσκω σε·—μένεις ἄκλαυστος μαρμάρῳ πιεζόμενος, δόμον τε

λάϊνον ναίεις—κροκόβαπτον ἔλθ' εὐ μαρὶν ἀείρων,

σκῆπτρον ἐν χείρεσσι λαβὼν, τιάρας λαμπρὸν ἐκ κρατὸς φάλαρον πιφαύσκων· ἔλθ', ἄναξ·—σύ μ' οὐκ ἀΐεις—βέβακας,

Ψάμμι, καὶ ἐν γᾶς

ἀγκάλαις εὕδεις ἔτι, τυμβόχωστόν δ' ἔργμα πέτραις ἀϊδίοις καλύπτει

σῶμα τοῦ κατοιχομένου, δύσοδμον

σώμα, τυράννου.

σοὶ δὲ τί χραισμεῖ τάδ'; ὁδοιπόρος τις τὸν τεὸν σταθήσεται ἀμφὶ τύμβον, ὀστέων ψυχρὰν σποδιὰν λυθέντων

ποσσὶ πατάσσων

Come from thy darkness! all too long
Thou lingerest in the grave;

Thou, the destroyer of the strong,
The powerful to save:

Come from thy darkness;-set again

Thy saffron sandal on the plain;

And bid thy golden sceptre gleam
Its wonted radiance yet;
And let thy bright tiara beam
Around thy locks of jet;

And play the king upon this spot,
As when-alas! thou listenest not!

Thy might hath fleeted from the day; Thy very name is hid;

Yet pride hath heaped upon thy clay
A ponderous Pyramid;

And thou art kingly still, and blest
In a right royal place of rest.

O what is this to thee or thine?
Some traveller idly stalks
Around the tomb of all thy line,
And tramples as he walks,
With rebel foot, and reckless eye,

The dust which once was Majesty.