Hermes Trismegistus
Still through Egypt's desert places
Flows the lordly Nile,
From its banks the great stone faces
Gaze with patient smile.
Still the pyramids imperious
Pierce the cloudless skies,
And the Sphinx stares with mysterious,
Solemn, stony eyes.
But where are the old Egyptian
Demi-gods and kings?
Nothing left but an inscription
Graven on stones and rings.
Where are Helios and Hephaestus,
Gods of eldest eld?
Where is Hermes Trismegistus,
Who their secrets held?
Where are now the many hundred
Thousand books he wrote?
By the Thaumaturgists plundered,
Lost in lands remote;
In oblivion sunk forever,
As when o'er the land
Blows a storm-wind, in the river
Sinks the scattered sand.
Something unsubstantial, ghostly,
Seems this Theurgist,
In deep meditation mostly
Wrapped, as in a mist.
Vague, phantasmal, and unreal
To our thought he seems,
Walking in a world ideal,
In a land of dreams.
Was he one, or many, merging
Name and fame in one,
Like a stream, to which, converging
Many streamlets run?
Till, with gathered power proceeding,
Ampler sweep it takes,
Downward the sweet waters leading
From unnumbered lakes.
By the Nile I see him wandering,
Pausing now and then,
On the mystic union pondering
Between gods and men;
Half believing, wholly feeling,
With supreme delight,
How the gods, themselves concealing,
Lift men to their height.
Or in Thebes, the hundred-gated,
In the thoroughfare
Breathing, as if consecrated,
A diviner air;
And amid discordant noises,
In the jostling throng,
Hearing far, celestial voices
Of Olympian song.
Who shall call his dreams fallacious?
Who has searched or sought
All the unexplored and spacious
Universe of thought?
Who, in his own skill confiding,
Shall with rule and line
Mark the border-land dividing
Human and divine?
Trismegistus! three times greatest!
How thy name sublime
Has descended to this latest
Progeny of time!
Happy they whose written pages
Perish with their lives,
If amid the crumbling ages
Still their name survives!
Thine, O priest of Egypt, lately
Found I in the vast,
Weed-encumbered sombre, stately,
Grave-yard of the Past;
And a presence moved before me
On that gloomy shore,
As a waft of wind, that o'er me
Breathed, and was no more.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Nile
Out of the unknown South,
Through the dark lands of drouth,
Far wanders ancient Nile in slumber gliding:
Clear-mirrored in his dream
The deeds that haunt his stream
Flash out and fade like stars in midnight sliding.
Long since, before the life of man
Rose from among the lives that creep,
With Time's own tide began
That still mysterious sleep,
Only to cease when Time shall reach the eternal deep.
From out his vision vast
The early gods have passed,
They waned and perished with the faith that made them;
The long phantasmal line
Of Pharaohs crowned divine
Are dust among the dust that once obeyed them.
Their land is one mute burial mound,
Save when across the drifted years
Some chant of hollow sound,
Some triumph blent with tears,
From Memnon's lips at dawn wakens the desert meres.
O Nile, and can it be
No memory dwells with thee
Of Grecian lore and the sweet Grecian singer?
The legions' iron tramp,
The Goths' wide-wandering camp,
Had these no fame that by thy shore might linger?
Nay, then must all be lost indeed,
Lost too the swift pursuing might
That cleft with passionate speed
Aboukir's tranquil night,
And shattered in mid-swoop the great world-eagle's flight.
Yet have there been on earth
Spirits of starry birth,
Whose splendour rushed to no eternal setting:
They over all endure,
Their course through all is sure,
The dark world's light is still of their begetting.
Though the long past forgotten lies,
Nile! in thy dream remember him,
Whose like no more shall rise
Above our twilight's rim,
Until the immortal dawn shall make all glories dim.
For this man was not great
By gold or kingly state,
Or the bright sword, or knowledge of earth's wonder;
But more than all his race
He saw life face to face,
And heard the still small voice above the thunder.
O river, while thy waters roll
By yonder vast deserted tomb,
There, where so clear a soul
So shone through gathering doom,
Thou and thy land shall keep the tale of lost Khartoum.
poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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Orion's Belt Pyramids
The River Nile,
the sphinx,
the pyramids,
haunt humanity
with mystic life
giving generations
golden waters,
questions
transforming
mind body
through time,
echo trio stars
Orion's Belt
in star sky
ground images,
as River Nile flows
through Egypt mirrors
Milky Way constellation
in
night
skies.
poem by Terence George Craddock
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The Story of River Nile with Egyptian Women
Once upon a time in the beautiful ancient Egypt
The sun asked the river Nile
From where you got this golden color?
The river Nile said
It's the color of the Egyptian women skin
When they come to bath
I melt some of their skin's color
The sphinx asked the river Nile
From where you got this sweet taste? The river Nile said
My sweetness is from the sweat of the Egyptian women.
The pyramid asked the river Nile
Why you flooding up every year
The river Nile said
When i feel longing to have more women
The Egyptian men protested against the Nile
Please stop your sexual harass
They always come back asking for more
The river Nile asked
So do you give them what they need?
The Egyptian men said
Yes we must do..We can't resist their temptation.
The same with me
The river Nile said.
poem by hosny Soliman
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Night Boat To Cairo
Night boat to cairo !!.....
Its just gone noon
Half past monsoon
On the banks of the river nile
Here comes the boat
Only half-afloat
Oarsman grins a toothless smile
Only just one more
To this desolate shore
Last boat along the river nile
Doesnt seem to care
No more wind in his hair
As he reaches his last half mile
The oar snaps in his hand
Before he reaches dry land
But the sound doesnt deafen his smile
Just pokes at wet sand
With an oar in his hand
Floats off down the river nile
Floats off down the river nile
song performed by by Madness
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Leah
They defied the gods and earned their wrath.
Waters washed over their land
sinking it miles beneath the sea
to languish for centuries in myth and mystery.
Then emerged a mysterious woman
I found floundering near the shore.
She said her name was Leah
and claimed she was from a land
that sunk centuries ago
by the gods deep beneath the sea.
As the days progressed from the time,
I found her
this is the story she related to me.
My city is one of many
and my people are very old.
We learnt a long time ago
the key to immortality.
Ours is but a simple life
farming fish and seaweed
for our daily feed.
Over the centuries we learnt the secrets
all here seek to learn,
how to breath underwater
and above on this land.
It was while I was exploring
you found me near the shore.
We go out quite often
just to explore this world
to see if you have learnt
from the mistakes we made
when we defied the gods.
Sadly, from what we have seen
you make more than we,
but I fear that unlike us
you will never sink beneath the sea.
Instead, your cities will crumble
and you will be buried
beneath your city’s waste
when the buildings crumble to the ground
She then rose up and moved
away from my house back to the sea,
as I called out her name Leah
a wind came up from nowhere
carrying her name away from me.
Leah vanished back into the sea
leaving me with only mystery.
Was she from the fabled Atlantis?
Was she as old as she had implied.
What about the prediction for us,
did I dream it all
or was it an alternate reality?
These questions I cannot answer,
but each night I wander
alone along the beach
and shout her name Leah
only to have the wind
carry it away from me
to somewhere far out to sea.
7 September 2011
poem by David Harris
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Killing Fountains
I see rockets in the desert sky
I see flesh and blood and I dont know why
Ive seen fathers and Ive seen them die
Ive seen mothers and their daughters cry
Surprised soldiers with holes in their heads
Smiling presidents sweating in their beds
Dreaming of the land where the black gold flows
Where the sun always shines
And the desert wind blows
Its always one step forward and two steps back
They stumble and fall and break their necks
In the land of the killing fountains
Once it was gods land in the middle-ages
Now blue helmets try to stop the rage
While rocket launchers burn the sand
Thats what you call the promised land
Its always one step forward and two steps back
They stumble and fall and break their necks
In the land of the killing fountains
You can kill bodies but you cant kill religion
This is the truth and peace is the fiction
In the land of the killing fountains
And millions die with a silent smile
Seven days a week and the years pass by
In the land of the killing fountains
Where the black gold flows
Where the desert wind blows
song performed by by Fury In The Slaughterhouse
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The World’s Justice
If the sudden tidings came
That on some far, foreign coast,
Buried ages long from fame,
Had been found a remnant lost
Of that hoary race who dwelt
By the golden Nile divine,
Spake the Pharaoh's tongue and knelt
At the moon-crowned Isis' shrine-
How at reverend Egypt's feet,
Pilgrims from all lands would meet!
If the sudden news were known,
That anigh the desert-place
Where once blossomed Babylon,
Scions of a mighty race
Still survived, of giant build,
Huntsmen, warriors, priest and sage,
Whose ancestral fame had filled,
Trumpet-tongued, the earlier age,
How at old Assyria's feet
Pilgrims from all lands would meet!
Yet when Egypt's self was young,
And Assyria's bloom unworn,
Ere the mythic Homer sung,
Ere the gods of Greece were born,
Lived the nation of one God,
Priests of freedom, sons of Shem,
Never quelled by yoke or rod,
Founders of Jerusalem-
Is there one abides to-day,
Seeker of dead cities, say!
Answer, now as then, THEY ARE;
Scattered broadcast o'er the lands,
Knit in spirit nigh and far,
With indissoluble bands.
Half the world adores their God,
They the living law proclaim,
And their guerdon is-the rod,
Stripes and scourgings, death and shame.
Still on Israel's head forlorn,
Every nation heaps its scorn.
poem by Emma Lazarus
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The New Exodus
BY fire and cloud, across the desert sand,
And through the parted waves,
From their long bondage, with an outstretched hand,
God led the Hebrew slaves!
Dead as the letter of the Pentateuch,
As Egypt's statues cold,
In the adytum of the sacred book
Now stands that marvel old.
'Lo, God is great!' the simple Moslem says.
We seek the ancient date,
Turn the dry scroll, and make that living phrase
A dead one: 'God was great!'
And, like the Coptic monks by Mousa's wells,
We dream of wonders past,
Vague as the tales the wandering Arab tells,
Each drowsier than the last.
O fools and blind! Above the Pyramids
Stretches once more that hand,
And trancëd Egypt, from her stony lids,
Flings back her veil of sand.
And morning-smitten Memnon, singing, wakes:
And, listening by his Nile,
O'er Ammon's grave and awful visage breaks
A sweet and human smile.
Not, as before, with hail and fire, and call
Of death for midnight graves,
But in the stillness of the noonday, fall
The fetters of the slaves.
No longer through the Red Sea, as of old,
The bondmen walk dry shod;
Through human hearts, by love of Him controlled,
Runs now that path of God!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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To The Nile
Month after month the gathered rains descend
Drenching yon secret Aethiopian dells,
And from the desert’s ice-girt pinnacles
Where Frost and Heat in strange embraces blend
On Atlas, fields of moist snow half depend.
Girt there with blasts and meteors Tempest dwells
By Nile’s aereal urn, with rapid spells
Urging those waters to their mighty end.
O’er Egypt’s land of Memory floods are level
And they are thine, O Nile--and well thou knowest
That soul-sustaining airs and blasts of evil
And fruits and poisons spring where’er thou flowest.
Beware, O Man--for knowledge must to thee,
Like the great flood to Egypt, ever be.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Dreamlight
Oh, I am lonely by a desert palm,
And dreaming, dreaming on the sands of thought
Oh, come to me from out the voiceless calm,
And teach me what the Nile has left untaught.
Bring to me a draught of Southern wine,
The perfume of the near-forgotten rose.
Then let me drink beside some ancient shrine,
And drinking, let my tired eyelids close.
Come near to me. The fast night-hours are few,
For every hour is fast when moons are clear.
Scatter from my hair the desert dew,
And lilt sweet Arab love-songs in my ear.
Unloose the twilight hair about thy head,
And listen to the waters deep and slow
For we are dreaming with the dreaming dead,
Dreaming where the flowers of Isis blow.
Look not to where those eagles fiercely fight,
Let peace alone be on the ancient bed.
Unbare thy beauty to the Egypt night,
And stay with me till Egypt’s dawn in red.
Then leave me when the bird of night has flown,
And touch my lips before the night-moon sinks.
I’ll ponder by these pyramids of stone,
And sit within the shadow of the Sphinx.
poem by Leon Gellert
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To Peter Cooper
The Pyramids of Egypt, even to-day
The wonder of the world, stupendous stand
In their material greatness, and defy
Alike relentless Time and Libyan sand.
But what great thought through those grim structures smiles?
What Aspiration reared those wondrous piles?
None,---save that kings, forgotten long ago,
Might leave their worthless dust to waste below.
This Shrine thou 'st reared to Science and to Art
A nobler Thought than Egypt dreamed contains,
And every stone speaks of a regal heart
Benignant as the Nile to desert plains,
When all the arid waste it overflows,
And the parched shores grow green, and blossom as the rose.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A brief tribute to George Seferis, poet
When the gods allot
a time, a place, to those so mortal
mortals whom they love to test,
is it a greater gift they give to poets,
to live in a land of honeybees
and sun and sea and heroes sung, a land
assured, content, of gods and marble,
temples, amphitheatres, history,
or in that land in times of tragedy,
starvation, misery, division,
internal war and conquered servitude?
Ultimate, the irony – how can the gods
think up such things? – to be
ambassador, to represent a land
from which to have been exiled half a life;
exiled from within and exiled from without.
The love the gods bestow (the Chorus cries)
is terrifying; strange; to be hard learned.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Ancient Egyptian Women Bathe In River Nile
The River Nile, the sphinx, the pyramids,
ask questions of us all, as do the bodies,
skin tones, sweet sweat, female Egyptians.
Ra and Nile melt golden skin colours,
into fresh taste of sacred Nile waters,
pyramids watch longing as Nile floods.
poem by Terence George Craddock
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The Gods Love Nubia
Kelly Price---The Gods Love Nubia
Music by Elton John
Lyrics by Tim Rice
Take me in my dreams recurring
Cheerful as a childhood dance
Into one more taste of freedom
One more longing backward glance
In the sway of somber music
I shall never, never understand
Let me slip into the sweeter
Chorus of that other land
The gods love Nubia, the beautiful, the golden
The radiant, the fertile, the gentle and the blessed
The pain of Nubia is only of the moment
The desolate, the suffering, the plundered, the oppressed
The gods love Nubia, the glorious creation
The songs roll sweetly across the harvest plain
The tears of Nubia, a passing aberration
They wash into the river and are never cried again
The gods love Nubia, we have to keep believing
The scattered and divided, we are still it's heart
The fall of Nubia, ephemeral and fleeting
The spirit always burning though the flesh is torn apart
song performed by by Kelly Price
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Enthusiasm's Promise
You’ve heard it said;
it sounds just great –
as well it might..
so now there’s just the matter
of our really-truly believing it; of
living up to it..
The divine world and
all its beings rest, reside, it’s said,
in each individual, as in the universe;
not remote – unless they remain
locked beyond forbidding heavy door of ego;
not sternly aloof – but ready
to offer in abundance, lawfully
to the lawful, whatever might be necessary;
it’s said they cannot lawfully resist;
are eager; smiling, running, to our voice…
what might they be thinking,
murmuring amongst themselves,
as they await the sound of rusty key
in rusty lock… to burst out and do
what the gods shall do; bring,
along with their vast divine forces,
that bonus, which is unimaginable
until it manifests; a glory
as of rising and of setting suns
and all that lies beyond..
It’s said, that first
they test our courage
in daring to pursue their path;
test our conviction that
they’re there to call upon;
test our intelligence
in how we go about it;
then – as Goethe told us
centuries ago: the gods, as Providence,
pour upon us means, events,
assistance past all dreams of human thought:
this, the Good within has vowed to us.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Night Over Egypt
Wansel / Biggs)
There's a sky in the east
Over pyramids at Giza
Where there once lived a girl
She ruled the world
Then down the nile
He came with a smile
He was the king
She was the queen
Under the moonlight
Your eyes won't believe
What your mind can't concieve
Oooh
Nights over Egypt
Nights over Egypt
Nights over Egypt
Incense & myrrh
And girls that swirl
To the music
Nights over Egypt
Women fellahin
Wear veils to been seen
By no one
Take a caravan across
The sudan
Saharan fagade
Is just a mirage
Oasis in the sand
Where life once began
Under the moonlight
Your eyes won't believe
What your mind can't concieve
Nights over Egypt
Nights over Egypt
Nights over Egypt
Nights over Egypt
song performed by by Incognito
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Celebes
DEAR islands of the Orient,
Where Nature's first of love was spent;
Sweet hill-tops of the summered land
Where gods and men went hand in hand
In golden days of sinless earth!
Woe rack the womb of time, that bore
The primal evil to its birth!
It came; the gods were seen no more:
The fields made sacred by their feet,
The flowers they loved, grown all too sweet,
The streams their bright forms mirrored,
The fragrant banks that made their bed,
The human hearts round which they wove
Their threads of superhuman love—
These were too dear and desolate
To sink to fallen man's estate;
The gods who loved them loosed the seas,
Struck free the barriers of the deep,
That rolled in one careering sweep
And filled the land, as 'twere a grave,
And left no beauteous remnant, save
Those hill-tops called the Celebes.
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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The Cloud Chorus
SOCRATES SPEAKS
Hither, come hither, ye Clouds renowned, and unveil yourselves
here;
Come, though ye dwell on the sacred crests of Olympian snow,
Or whether ye dance with the Nereid Choir in the gardens clear,
Or whether your golden urns are dipped in Nile's overflow,
Or whether you dwell by Maeotis mere
Or the snows of Mimas, arise! appear!
And hearken to us, and accept our gifts ere ye rise and go.
THE CLOUDS SING
Immortal Clouds from the echoing shore
Of the father of streams from the sounding sea,
Dewy and fleet, let us rise and soar;
Dewy and gleaming and fleet are we!
Let us look on the tree-clad mountain-crest,
On the sacred earth where the fruits rejoice,
On the waters that murmur east and west,
On the tumbling sea with his moaning voice.
For unwearied glitters the Eye of the Air,
And the bright rays gleam;
Then cast we our shadows of mist, and fare
In our deathless shapes to glance everywhere
From the height of the heaven, on the land and air,
And the Ocean Stream.
Let us on, ye Maidens that bring the Rain,
Let us gaze on Pallas's citadel,
In the country of Cecrops fair and dear,
The mystic land of the holy cell,
Where the Rites unspoken securely dwell,
And the gifts of the gods that know not stain,
And a people of mortals that know not fear.
For the temples tall and the statues fair,
And the feasts of the gods are holiest there;
The feasts of Immortals, the chaplets of flowers,
And the Bromian mirth at the coming of spring,
And the musical voices that fill the hours,
And the dancing feet of the maids that sing!
poem by Aristophanes
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Four Winds
Four winds blow across the land
Journey east in the caravan of change
Everything is connecting beyond man
Sensuality cleanses only the estranged
Wells are deep in the earth of soul
The purest sweet joy begins too flow
Principalities war in all the high places
We are fought in all the dark regions
Gird your sword every Christian soldier
The enemy brings his fallen legions
The battle is ours if we stand our ground
Hold on until the great trumpet sounds
Trust not in unsure riches and gold
The earth reels like a sick drunken man
Hold on to your most precious faith
Confusion like a plague sets on the land
Fill your vessels at the crimson streams
Jerusalem shall fill with His divine peace
Hear the gentle voice calling in the wind
Eternity is truly the real resting place
We leave Egypt for the Promised Land
We are led by the sweet voice of grace
These are the days of the Prophet Joel
Gods Spirit calls the young and the old
The four winds are gathering Gods people
poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
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The Moon of Ramadân
The sunset melts upon the Nile,
The stony desert glows,
Beneath heaven's universal smile,
One burning damask rose;
And like a Peri's pearly boat,
No longer than a span,
Look, faint on fiery sky afloat,
The Moon of Ramadân.
Our boat drifts idly with the Stream,
Our boatmen ship the oar;
Vistas of endless temples gleam
On either topaz shore;
And swimming over groves of Palm,
A crescent weak and wan,
There steals into the perfect calm
The Moon of Ramadân.
All nature seems to bask in peace
And hush her lowest sigh;
Above the river's golden fleece
The happy Halcyons fly.
And lost in some old lotos dream,
The pensive Pelican
Sees mirrored in the mazy stream
The Moon of Ramadân.
Black outlined on the golden air
A turbaned Silhouette,
The Mueddin invites to prayer
From many a Minaret.
Our dusky boatmen hear the call,
And prostrate, man on man,
They bow, adoring, one and all,
The Moon of Ramadân.
Where Luxor's rose-flushed columns shine
Above the river's brim,
The priests with incense once, and wine,
Made sacrifice to Him,
The highest god of Thebes, and head
Of all the heavenly clan;
But now the Moslem hails instead
The Moon of Ramadân.
The gods have come, the gods have gone,
Yet wedded to their walls,
Winged with the serpent of the Sun
In mute processionals,
They stride from door to massy door,
Bound nations in their van,
Though Amon's Sun has waned before
The Moon of Ramadân.
Yea, even proud Egypt's proudest king,
Who chastised rebel lands,
And brought his gods for offering
Mountains of severed hands;
Who singly, like a god of War,
Smote hosts that swerved and ran,
Lies low 'neath Allah's scimetar--
The Moon of Ramadân.
And Isis, Queen, whose sacred disk's
Horned splendour crowned her brow,
While fires of flashing Obelisks
Flamed in the Afterglow;
And white-robed priests who served her shrine
Have turned Mahommedan,
And worship Him who wears for sign
The Moon of Ramadân.
The rosy lotos, flower and leaf,
Which wreathed each sacred lake,
With Nature's loveliest bas-relief,
Has followed in their wake;
Yea, with the last true Pharaoh's death,
The lotos leaves, grown wan,
Have changed to lily white beneath
The Moon of Ramadân.
The gods may come, the gods may go,
And royal realms change hands;
But the most ancient Nile will flow,
And flood the desert sands;
And nightly will he glass the stars'
Unearthly caravan,
Nor care if it be Rome's red Mars
Or Moon of Ramadân.
The sunset fades upon the Nile;
The desert's stony gloom,
Receding blankly mile on mile,
Grows silent as a tomb.
All weary wanderers, man and beast,
Hie, fasting, to the Khan,
While shines above their nightly feast
The Moon of Ramadân.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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