CHAMPOLLION.

Age after age the twin bright spheres, whom the sons of Nile revere,
Had in harmonious orbits ruled the various-circling year.
'Twas night: the dawn of day was near, that holy festal day
When the fierce power of Helios fell with perpendicular ray.
Thoughtful the Priest of Hermes then in nightly silence sate,
Watching the ordered signs of Heaven, at Egypt's southern gate,
Where Ethiopia's sacred stream with wild tumultuous flow
Breaks through the barrier rock, and foams into the vale below.
A hollow-murmuring roar far-heard proclaims the swelling flood,
That yearly draws the fruitful growth from Egypt's pregnant mud.
Then eastward his pure hands the Priest uplifts with faith sincere,
The faith which fills the soul with light, and makes the future clear;
And to the God he prayed who oft had taught him lore divine,
Plainly, or through the mystic mask of the quaintly picturing sign:

"O Thoth, if e'er on festal day thou heardst my prayer in heaven, "If honestly I used the light that by thy grace was given,

"Now let me reap the fruits of years of thoughtful meditation,

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Reading the march of deathless Gods in the mounting constellation! "If Sothis shines before the Sun, a heavenly herald clear, "Even on that day when thou shalt ope the gates o' the sacred year, "Then may I surely know that all the Gods who reign sublime "With newborn force commence to-day the march of ordered time. "Four times ten years I've watched the sky for Sirius' heavenly birth, "Then when the first of Thoth returned to the warm fruit-bearing earth,

"And now what lacked hath been fulfilled of the mystic year complete,
"When Sothis with his morning strength the rising Sun shall greet.
"Now doth the great world-year begin, new centuries are told;
"What long my heart believed make now my fleshly eye behold!"

He said; and in the east he saw the morning's long grey lines, Day's harbinger; and in the sky the mounting Sirius shines:

"Now," he exclaimed, “may I proclaim what in thy rays I read, "Thousands of years of prosperous fates are to this land decreed. "The Gods are true; by cosmic laws they guide the wheeling stars, "And through long centuries no break the heavenly concert mars: "Hundreds and thousands of long years thy prosperous course shall see, "Land of the swelling flood, this fate the stars revealed to me!

"When thrice and once the circling year hath rolled its course sublime, "The ruling Star remains one day behind its counted time.

"Thus, when four times the annual tale of days is told in years,

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A year is gained, which to the Gods belongs who rule the spheres,

By us not counted; for by earthly laws our seasons roll :

"We rob them of the parts of time, they give us back the whole. "The time we from their grace receive, a boon from burden free, "We to their glory here may spend in sacred jubilee!"

And so it was; and feasts and years and fates, a sacred chain,
Followed the Star- to whoso knows the stars a mystery plain.
A thousand and four hundred years and sixty make complete
The sacred cycle, when in earth and heaven the seasons meet.

Twice since that time the holy Priest the complete cycle told
Before o'er Egypt's land the dark of long oblivion rolled;
Night too obscured the signs that taught the seasons' mystic lore,
"For water four, and four for growth, and four for garnered store."

Then to thy thought, immortal Thinker, genius made clear,

From types that marked the changing month, the laws that bound the year.

Thy glance perceived when first commenced the calculated round

Of years that to the starry march the fate of Egypt bound,

Till with the rising Sirius' ray the swelling year began,

And in significant type the Priest beheld the numbered plan.
Thy science proved the truth of honest Manetho: thy ken
Gave back their old far-dated birth to the race of mortal men,
Who from the hoariest centuries learned with speculative awe
To read the heavens, and in the whole to read one mystic law,
Image of right and social form, which with abiding power
The knowing soul of man impresses on the fleeting hour.

Our thanks be to the Prophet paid who saw with vision clear,

In the quaint types that marked the month, the law that ruled the year;
Then gave his thought to the learned friend that knew the starry ways,
Who from such germ brought flower and fruit, to both a deathless praise.
Have thou my thanks, my gift receive, thou Spirit keen and fine;
I give but what I got the gold that takes my stamp was thine!

PREFACE TO THE THIRD VOLUME

OF

THE ENGLISH EDITION.

THE alteration which the author has made in the arrangement of the contents of the Fourth and Fifth Books, in the present English edition, will, he thinks, be found a decided improvement upon the original German

text.

By incorporating into the Book of Synchronisms everything which belongs either exclusively or principally to chronological history, he hopes to have made the parts of each volume more homogeneous, and the whole more clear and intelligible to his readers. He cannot doubt, also, that the new matter which will be published for the first time in the Fifth Volume will add considerably to the value, as well as interest, of the whole work. Thanks to Mr. Birch's kindness and his zeal for the advancement of Egyptian science, the author is enabled to offer to the public a glossary of all the roots and words in that language at present known to us, being an addition of nearly 2000 to the glossary in the First Volume. Yet even that glossary is acknowledged to be the most complete hitherto existing, and it is not too much to say that there is little probability of any considerable further addition being ever made to the one in preparation. It may safely be asserted that we are now acquainted, at all events, with by very far the largest portion of the Hieratic and Hieroglyphical vocabulary, although some additional knowledge may be