The Tombs Of The Kings
Where the mummied Kings of Egypt, wrapped in linen fold on fold,
Couched for ages in their coffins, crowned with crowns of dusky gold,
Lie in subterranean chambers, biding to the day of doom,
Counterfeit life's hollow semblance in each mazy mountain tomb,
Grisly in their gilded coffins, mocking masks of skin and bone,
Yet remain in change unchanging, balking Nature of her own;
Mured in mighty Mausoleums, walled in from the night and day,
Lo, the mortal Kings of Egypt hold immortal Death at bay.
For-so spake the Kings of Egypt-those colossal ones whose hand
Held the peoples from Pitasa to the Kheta's conquered land;
Who, with flash and clash of lances and war-chariots, stormed and won
Many a town of stiff-necked Syria to high-towering Askalon:
'We have been the faithful stewards of the deathless gods on high;
We have built them starry temples underneath the starry sky.
'We have smitten rebel nations, as a child is whipped with rods:
We the living incarnation of imperishable gods.
'Shall we suffer Death to trample us to nothingness? and must
We be scattered, as the whirlwind blows about the desert dust?
'No! Death shall not dare come near us, nor Corruption shall not lay
Hands upon our sacred bodies, incorruptible as day.
'Let us put a bit and bridle, and rein in Time's headlong course;
Let us ride him through the ages as a master rides his horse.
'On the changing earth unchanging let us bide till Time shall end,
Till, reborn in blest Osiris, mortal with Immortal blend.'
Yea, so spake the Kings of Egypt, they whose lightest word was law,
At whose nod the far-off nations cowered, stricken dumb with awe.
And Fate left the haughty rulers to work out their monstrous doom;
And, embalmed with myrrh and ointments, they were carried to the tomb;
Through the gate of Bab-el-Molouk, where the sulphur hills lie bare,
Where no green thing casts a shadow in the noon's tremendous glare;
Where the unveiled Blue of heaven in its bare intensity
Weighs upon the awe-struck spirit with the world's immensity;
Through the Vale of Desolation, where no beast or bird draws breath,
To the Coffin-Hills of Tuat-the Metropolis of Death.
Down-down-down into the darkness, where, on either hand, dread Fate,
In the semblance of a serpent, watches by the dolorous gate;
Down-down-down into the darkness, where no gleam of sun or star
Sheds its purifying radiance from the living world afar;
Where in labyrinthine windings, darkly hidden, down and down,-
Proudly on his marble pillow, with old Egypt's double crown,
And his mien of cold commandment, grasping still his staff of state,
Rests the mightiest of the Pharaohs, whom the world surnamed the Great.
Swathed in fine Sidonian linen, crossed hands folded on the breast,
There the mummied Kings of Egypt lie within each painted chest.
And upon their dusky foreheads Pleiades of flaming gems,
Glowing through the nether darkness, flash from luminous diadems.
Where is Memphis? Like a Mirage, melted into empty air:
But these royal gems yet sparkle richly on their raven hair.
Where is Thebes in all her glory, with her gates of beaten gold?
Where Syenê, or that marvel, Heliopolis of old?
Where is Edfu? Where Abydos? Where those pillared towns of yore
Whose auroral temples glittered by the Nile's thick-peopled shore?
Gone as evanescent cloudlands, Alplike in the afterglow;
But these Kings hold fast their bodies of four thousand years ago.
Sealed up in their Mausoleums, in the bowels of the hills,
There they hide from dissolution and Death's swiftly grinding mills.
Scattering fire, Uræus serpents guard the Tombs' tremendous gate;
While Troth holds the trembling balance, weighs the heart and seals its fate.
And a multitude of mummies in the swaddling clothes of death,
Ferried o'er the sullen river, on and on still hasteneth.
And around them and above them, blazoned on the rocky walls,
Crowned with stars, enlaced by serpents, in divine processionals,
Ibis-headed, jackal-featured, vulture-hooded, pass on high,
Gods on gods through Time's perspectives-pilgrims of Eternity.
There, revealed by fitful flashes, in a gloom that may be felt,
Wild Chimæras flash from darkness, glittering like Orion's belt.
And on high, o'er shining waters, in their barks the gods sail by,
In the Sunboat and the Moonboat, rowed across the rose-hued sky.
Night, that was before Creation, watches sphinx-like, starred with eyes,
And the hours and days are passing, and the years and centuries.
But these mummied Kings of Egypt, pictures of a perished race,
Lie, of Death forgotten, face by immemorial face.
Though the glorious sun above them, burning on the naked plain,
Clothes the empty wilderness with the golden, glowing grain;
Though the balmy Moon above them, floating in the milky Blue,
Fills the empty wildernesses with a silver fall of dew;
Though life comes and flies unresting, like the shadow which a dove
Casts upon the Sphinx, in passing, for a moment from above;-
Still these mummied Kings of Egypt, wrapped in linen, fold on fold,
Bide through the ages in their coffins, crowned with crowns of dusky gold.
Had the sun once brushed them lightly, or a breath of air, they must
Instantaneously have crumbled into evanescent dust.
Pale and passive in their prisons, they have conquered, chained to death;
And their lineaments look living now as when they last drew breath!
Have they conquered? Oh the pity of those Kings within their tombs,
Locked in stony isolation in those petrifying glooms!
Motionless where all is motion in a rolling Universe,
Heaven, by answering their prayer, turned it to a deadly curse.
Left them fixed where all is fluid in a world of star-winged skies;
Where, in myriad transformations, all things pass and nothing dies;
Nothing dies but what is tethered, kept when Time would set it free,
To fulfil Thought's yearning tension upward through Eternity.
poem by Mathilde Blind
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
The Tombs of the Kings
Where the mummied Kings of Egypt, wrapped in linen fold on fold,
Couched for ages in their coffins, crowned with crowns of dusky gold,
Lie in subterranean chambers, biding to the day of doom,
Counterfeit life's hollow semblance in each mazy mountain tomb,
Grisly in their gilded coffins, mocking masks of skin and bone,
Yet remain in change unchanging, balking Nature of her own;
Mured in mighty Mausoleums, walled in from the night and day,
Lo, the mortal Kings of Egypt hold immortal Death at bay.
For--so spake the Kings of Egypt--those colossal ones whose hand
Held the peoples from Pitasa to the Kheta's conquered land;
Who, with flash and clash of lances and war-chariots, stormed and won
Many a town of stiff-necked Syria to high-towering Askalon:
"We have been the faithful stewards of the deathless gods on high;
We have built them starry temples underneath the starry sky.
"We have smitten rebel nations, as a child is whipped with rods:
We the living incarnation of imperishable gods.
"Shall we suffer Death to trample us to nothingness? and must
We be scattered, as the whirlwind blows about the desert dust?
"No! Death shall not dare come near us, nor Corruption shall not lay
Hands upon our sacred bodies, incorruptible as day.
"Let us put a bit and bridle, and rein in Time's headlong course;
Let us ride him through the ages as a master rides his horse.
"On the changing earth unchanging let us bide till Time shall end,
Till, reborn in blest Osiris, mortal with Immortal blend."
Yea, so spake the Kings of Egypt, they whose lightest word was law,
At whose nod the far-off nations cowered, stricken dumb with awe.
And Fate left the haughty rulers to work out their monstrous doom;
And, embalmed with myrrh and ointments, they were carried to the tomb;
Through the gate of Bab-el-Molouk, where the sulphur hills lie bare,
Where no green thing casts a shadow in the noon's tremendous glare;
Where the unveiled Blue of heaven in its bare intensity
Weighs upon the awe-struck spirit with the world's immensity;
Through the Vale of Desolation, where no beast or bird draws breath,
To the Coffin-Hills of Tuat--the Metropolis of Death.
Down--down--down into the darkness, where, on either hand, dread Fate,
In the semblance of a serpent, watches by the dolorous gate;
Down--down--down into the darkness, where no gleam of sun or star
Sheds its purifying radiance from the living world afar;
Where in labyrinthine windings, darkly hidden, down and down,--
Proudly on his marble pillow, with old Egypt's double crown,
And his mien of cold commandment, grasping still his staff of state,
Rests the mightiest of the Pharaohs, whom the world surnamed the Great.
Swathed in fine Sidonian linen, crossed hands folded on the breast,
There the mummied Kings of Egypt lie within each painted chest.
And upon their dusky foreheads Pleiades of flaming gems,
Glowing through the nether darkness, flash from luminous diadems.
Where is Memphis? Like a Mirage, melted into empty air:
But these royal gems yet sparkle richly on their raven hair.
Where is Thebes in all her glory, with her gates of beaten gold?
Where Syenê, or that marvel, Heliopolis of old?
Where is Edfu? Where Abydos? Where those pillared towns of yore
Whose auroral temples glittered by the Nile's thick-peopled shore?
Gone as evanescent cloudlands, Alplike in the afterglow;
But these Kings hold fast their bodies of four thousand years ago.
Sealed up in their Mausoleums, in the bowels of the hills,
There they hide from dissolution and Death's swiftly grinding mills.
Scattering fire, Uræus serpents guard the Tombs' tremendous gate;
While Troth holds the trembling balance, weighs the heart and seals its fate.
And a multitude of mummies in the swaddling clothes of death,
Ferried o'er the sullen river, on and on still hasteneth.
And around them and above them, blazoned on the rocky walls,
Crowned with stars, enlaced by serpents, in divine processionals,
Ibis-headed, jackal-featured, vulture-hooded, pass on high,
Gods on gods through Time's perspectives--pilgrims of Eternity.
There, revealed by fitful flashes, in a gloom that may be felt,
Wild Chimæras flash from darkness, glittering like Orion's belt.
And on high, o'er shining waters, in their barks the gods sail by,
In the Sunboat and the Moonboat, rowed across the rose-hued sky.
Night, that was before Creation, watches sphinx-like, starred with eyes,
And the hours and days are passing, and the years and centuries.
But these mummied Kings of Egypt, pictures of a perished race,
Lie, of Death forgotten, face by immemorial face.
Though the glorious sun above them, burning on the naked plain,
Clothes the empty wilderness with the golden, glowing grain;
Though the balmy Moon above them, floating in the milky Blue,
Fills the empty wildernesses with a silver fall of dew;
Though life comes and flies unresting, like the shadow which a dove
Casts upon the Sphinx, in passing, for a moment from above;--
Still these mummied Kings of Egypt, wrapped in linen, fold on fold,
Bide through the ages in their coffins, crowned with crowns of dusky gold.
Had the sun once brushed them lightly, or a breath of air, they must
Instantaneously have crumbled into evanescent dust.
Pale and passive in their prisons, they have conquered, chained to death;
And their lineaments look living now as when they last drew breath!
Have they conquered? Oh the pity of those Kings within their tombs,
Locked in stony isolation in those petrifying glooms!
Motionless where all is motion in a rolling Universe,
Heaven, by answering their prayer, turned it to a deadly curse.
Left them fixed where all is fluid in a world of star-winged skies;
Where, in myriad transformations, all things pass and nothing dies;
Nothing dies but what is tethered, kept when Time would set it free,
To fulfil Thought's yearning tension upward through Eternity.
poem by Mathilde Blind
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Old is gold
Old is gold
Gold never old.
I gaze at you
And you become
Fold and fold.
I gaze at you
You and I
Cast in the same mould.
poem by Gajanan Mishra
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A Honey-Do List (This is my attempt at a Sestina)
I wrote a long honey-do list
and handed it to my husband.
With a smile he read it and with a fold
he stuffed it in his pocket.
I'll get to this as soon as I can,
but can't you hear the cry from the dogs.
Who can't hear the cry of the dogs?
Did you not read my list?
If you won't do it I can,
I said to my loving husband
I took the list from his pocket.
And opened it at the fold.
It was closed with a fold,
because I want to hunt my dogs.
Now return it to my pocket.
I will get to the list,
Said my loving husband.
I'll get to it when I can.
I'm doing the best I can,
and he creased it at the fold.
Cried out my loving husband,
you know I love my dogs.
I'll get around to this list
and returned it to his pocket.
With my fingers I tapped the pocket,
maybe you can't but I can,
dropp you from my list.
Grabbing me he did fold
me in his arms like he does his dogs.
I am your loving husband.
I promise you said my loving husband,
with a hand on his heart across his pocket
I love you more than my dogs
I'll get to you when I can
Please return me to your fold
Because you know you head my list
Thirty-two dogs and one husband
added to my list and stuffed in a pocket
Enjoy it while I can and iron out our differences at the fold.
poem by Victoria Dame
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Our Tomorrows
Minutes fold into hours,
hours fold into days
and days fold into years
that quickly disappear away.
One day we are young
and then we are old
as time carries on
until we are no more.
In our universe,
we are alive no more
than a giant's
blink of an eye.
We strive to be remembered
in whatever field
we inspire to do
and never to be forgotten.
We try to live
a life to full measure
as if our tomorrows
depend on our today's.
11 June 2012
poem by David Harris
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Lilac And Gold And Green
Lilac and gold and green!
Those are the colours I love the best,
Spring's own raiment untouched and clean,
When the world is awake and yet hardly dressed,
And the stranger sun, her bridegroom shy,
Looks at her bosom and wonders why
She is so beautiful, he so blest.
Lilac and green and gold!
Those were the colours you wore to--day,
Robed you were in them fold on fold,
Clothed in the light of your love's delay.
And I held you thus in my arms, once only,
And wondered still, as you left me lonely,
How the world's beauty was changed to grey.
Lilac and gold and green!
I would die for the truth of those colours true!
Lilac for loyalty, gold for my queen,
And green the faith of my love for you.
Here is a posy of all the three.
My heart is with it. So think of me,
And our weeping skies shall once more be blue.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Linen Hankerchief
Does anyone still make use of the linen handkerchief?
Does anyone still take the time to starch and iron,
Fold and press into triangle or square?
Many and varied the role of this flimsy accessory!
To dab one’s eyes, or nose; or after rain, I suppose –
To dab discreetly at one’s hair.
Then there’s the dapper suit with its lively pocket adornment;
A love token waved, or given away –
A Cinderella’s slipper found by a favoured gent.
Man and woman and child alike for reasons unbeknownst
May stash one on their person quite unbidden.
A lot of fuss over nothing much: this strangest piece of linen.
poem by Jean Renwick
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There's Snow On The Fields
There's snow on the fields,
And cold in the cottage,
While I sit in the chimney nook
Supping hot pottage.
My clothes are soft and warm,
Fold upon fold,
But I'm so sorry for the poor
Out in the cold.
poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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Forgotten
Lords of the Nursery
Wait in a row,
Five on the high wall,
And four on the low;
Big Kings and Little Kings,
Brown Bears and Black,
All of them waiting
Till John comes back.
Some think that John boy
Is lost in the wood,
Some say he couldn’t be,
Some say he could.
Some think that John boy
Hides on the hill;
Some say he won’t come back,
Some say he will.
High was the sun, when
John went away . . .
Here they’ve been waiting
All through the day;
Big Bears and Little Bears,
White Kings and Black,
All of them waiting
Till John comes back.
Lords of the Nursery
Looked down the hill,
Some saw the sheep-fold,
Some say the mill;
Some saw the roofs
Of the little grey town . . .
And their shadows grew long
As the sun slipt down.
Gold between the poplars
An old moon shows;
Silver up the star-way
The full moon rose;
Silver down the star-way
The old moon crept . . .
And, one by another,
The grey fields slept.
Lords of the Nursery
Their still watch keep . . .
They hear from the sheep-fold
The rustle of sheep.
A young bird twitters
And hides its head;
A little wind suddenly
Breathes, and is dead.
Slowly and slowly
Dawns the new day . . .
What’s become of John boy?
No one can say.
Some think that John boy
Is lost on the hill;
Some say he won’t come back,
Some say he will.
What's become of John boy?
Nothing at all,
He played with his skipping rope,
He played with his ball.
He ran after butterflies,
Blue ones and red;
He did a hundred happy things—
And then went to bed.
poem by Alan Alexander Milne
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Autumn Sadness
Air and sky are swathed in gold
Fold on fold,
Light glows through the trees like wine.
Earth, sun-quickened, swoons for bliss
'Neath his kiss,
Breathless in a trance divine.
Nature pauses from her task,
Just to bask
In these lull'd transfigured hours.
The green leaf nor stays nor goes,
But it grows
Royaler than mid-June's flowers.
Such impassioned silence fills
All the hills
Burning with unflickering fire-
Such a blood-red splendor stains
The leaves' veins,
Life seems one fulfilled desire.
While earth, sea, and heavens shine,
Heart of mine,
Say, what art thou waiting for?
Shall the cup ne'er reach the lip,
But still slip
Till the life-long thirst give o'er?
Shall my soul, no frosts may tame,
Catch new flame
From the incandescent air?
In this nuptial joy apart,
Oh my heart,
Whither shall we lonely fare?
Seek some dusky, twilight spot,
Quite forgot
Of the Autumn's Bacchic fire.
Where soft mists and shadows sleep,
There outweep
Barren longing's vain desire.
poem by Emma Lazarus
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Blind Fool
I lost it and it cost me
I let it take hold
this is where it got me
walking blind fold
My insecurities brought me here
I saw the signs: Beware
but I refuse to take notice and tackled on
now here I am,
Finally taken off the blind fold
stranded in the middle of nowhere
a place where only fools reside
alone with my pride
poem by Kelvin Owusu
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Don't Break The Hold
Don't........
Don't break the hold,
Or I may fold,
And fall into an
endless vault of
Vaulted faults
Down tunnels of time
So don't
Break the hold,
Or I may fold......
© 1980
poem by Nick Strong
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Epigram For Wall Street
I'll tell you a plan for gaining wealth,
Better than banking, trade or leases —
Take a bank note and fold it up,
And then you will find your money in creases!
This wonderful plan, without danger or loss,
Keeps your cash in your hands, where nothing can trouble it;
And every time that you fold it across,
'Tis as plain as the light of the day that you double it!
poem by Edgar Allan Poe
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Gold!
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold
Molten, graven, hammered and rolled,
Heavy to get and light to hold,
Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold,
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled,
Spurned by young, but hung by old
To the verge of a church yard mold;
Price of many a crime untold.
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Good or bad a thousand fold!
How widely it agencies vary,
To save - to ruin - to curse - to bless -
As even its minted coins express :
Now stamped with the image of Queen Bess,
And now of a bloody Mary.
poem by Thomas Hood
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Intellectuals
Is it so hard for men to stand by themselves,
They must hang on Marx or Christ, or mere Progress?
Clearly it is hard. But these ought to be leaders . . .
Sheep leading sheep, 'The fold, the fold.
Night comes, and the wolves of doubt.' Clearly it is hard.
Yourself, if you had not encountered and loved
Our unkindly all but inhuman God,
Who is very beautiful and too secure to want worshippers,
And includes indeed the sheep with the wolves,
You too might have been looking about for a church.
He includes the flaming stars and pitiable flesh,
And what we call things and what we call nothing.
He is very beautiful. But when these lonely have travelled
Through long thoughts to redeeming despair,
They are tired and cover their eyes; they flock into fold.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Milton
I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold
How the voluminous billows roll and run,
Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun
Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled,
And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold
All its loose-flowing garments into one,
Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun
Pale reach of sands, and changes them to gold.
So in majestic cadence rise and fall
The mighty undulations of thy song,
O sightless bard, England's Mæonides!
And ever and anon, high over all
Uplifted, a ninth wave superb and strong,
Floods all the soul with its melodious seas.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Hide Your Fortune
Fortune hides a fortune of gold and silver,
The very same silver commanding, friendlier;
Frost demands of the gold some ancient health
And power, the very commands have wealth.
Ice is an unique trumpet of gold,
Golden men are carriers of the old.
May God fold in the ingredients of a soup,
One made of pennies of fluid and in a group.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Marigolds (Novelinee)
Like the morning glory you worship the sun
opening golden fold upon golden fold
following it from the time the day begun
as if that starry thing you do behold
longing for its shining white hot rays
as if watching while it is moving on
opening sunny day upon sunny day
and closing just as soon as it is gone
as if its love to you is the only one.
poem by Gert Strydom
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A Rainy Day in April
When the clouds shake their hyssops, and the rain
Like holy water falls upon the plain,
'Tis sweet to gaze upon the springing grain
And see your harvest born.
And sweet the little breeze of melody
The blackbord puffs upon teh budding tree,
While the wild poppy lights upon the lea
And blazes 'mid the corn.
The skylark soars the freshening shower to hail,
And the meek daisy holds aloft her pail.
And Spring all radiant by the wayside pale
Sets up her rock and reel.
See how she weaves her mantle fold on fold,
Hemming the woods and carpeting the wold.
Her warp is of the green, her woof the gold,
The spinning world her wheel.
poem by Francis Ledwidge
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Moonlight
It will not hurt me when I am old,
A running tide where moonlight burned
Will not sting me like silver snakes;
The years will make me sad and cold,
It is the happy heart that breaks.
The heart asks more than life can give,
When that is learned, then all is learned;
The waves break fold on jewelled fold,
But beauty itself is fugitive,
It will not hurt me when I am old.
poem by Sara Teasdale
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Do you hear my name?
At the sails of passion
At the streets of gold
At the peak of the mountains
At the upper chambers of the castle
At the midst of great scientists
At the top of the Newton's laws
At the breaking of the Enrico's chains
At the lordship above Alexander
At the Solomon's city alliance
At the realm in the seven crowns of Egypt
At the world's wise decision seat
At the mansion on the earth's orbit
At the money burning government refinery
At the chief seat of a great presidential lunch
At the cover page as every picture and writing
At the command as my bodyguard recruit nation's militants
At the midst of believers in the kingdom of God
Do you hear my name?
And do you hear my name again?
Lord, if Thou shalt deny me all, do not deny me the last
For Thy kingdom bringeth all, and all have you!
poem by Ivan Chizurum Ezeigbo
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