Egypt

Thomas Bailey Aldrich 1836 (Portsmouth) – 1907 (Boston)



Fantastic sleep is busy with my eyes;
I seem in some waste solitude to stand
Once ruled of Cheops; upon either hand
A dark illimitable desert lies,
Sultry and still -- a zone of mysteries.
A wide-browed Sphinx, half buried in the sand,
With orbless sockets stares across the land,
The wofulest thing beneath these brooding skies
Save that loose heap of bleachèd bones, that lie
Where haply some poor Bedouin crawled to die.
Lo! while I gaze, beyond the vast sand-sea
The nebulous clouds are downward slowly drawn,
And one bleared star, faint glimmering like a bee,
Is shut in the rosy outstretched hand of Dawn.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

32 sec read
79

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBACBBADDEFEF
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 620
Words 109
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Thomas Bailey Aldrich was a poet novelist traveler and editor more…

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