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TO-M

TWO WISHES.

O-MORROW is our only day of meeting;
Oh! how I long to meet;

With very pain my hoping heart is beating,

But 'tis a pain that's sweet.

The moments drawl like hours;
Oh! all ye heavenly powers,

Whate'er of life doth intervene

My hope and promised joy between,

Destroy it; make to-morrow of to-day;

Push Time along-let Time run fast away!

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To-morrow's here, and now it is our meeting;

Oh! we have met again;

What earthly paradise appears this greeting!

But 'tis a joy with pain.

The hours like moments fly;

Oh! all ye powers on high,

Cut short my future if ye will,

But make my present life stand still :

The passage toward to-morrow morning stay, Rock Time to sleep-let Time not run away!

VISIT TO THE NOBLE RUINS OF KOM OMBO.

Standing on an eminence on the east bank of the Nile, between Edfou and Assouan, where the river is fast undermining the land. Time, sunset. January 18, 1880.

ASS not my ruin scornful by,

PASS

Nor slight my fractured majesty,

Though no such fragments can I show
As Karnac's mass that frowns below.
High o'er Old Nile my form I rear,
I ask no smile, I crave no tear,
Yet with the rest I make my claim,
As sprung from equal royal name,
For I, all shattered as I be,
Am proud as they of pedigree.

Ye who at hour of sunset come
To gaze upon my sandy home,
To view my precincts all forlorn,
That rude iconoclasts have torn,

My smothered shafts, my broken brow,
Never more stern and proud than now,

As one who, certain of decay,
Flings every lying hope away,
If ye my ancient history seek,
But little can I stoop to speak,

For why recall my foolish past,

Since they who reared me could not last?

Or why repeat my brilliant story,

If grand in ruin as in glory?

Well! my vast fabric was designed
To overawe the Egyptian mind:
The gods of darkness and of light,
Those spirits of opposing might,
Claimed worship in my solemn fane;
But all was superstition vain,
Which novel creeds have swept away,
To claim, in turn, their passing day.

Flow, Nile, to undermine the land Whereon my yet left ruins stand, Flow, Time, to work thy constant ill, Το my last stone I'm steadfast still!

Long, long, my god of light has flown,
My god of darkness reigns alone!

And stranger, go! night falls, and soon,
All silvered by the staring moon,

A ghostly light like life shall pour

Where darkness doth become far more.

Go, stranger, go! and leave on high Kom Ombo towering to the sky,

And if, perchance, your friends among

My name should move your wondering tongue, Then this my vengeful word recall,

I nurse while tottering to my fall,

When blankness shall my throne possess,

Old Nile shall boast one glory less!

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