Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1910 (Heft 29))

Pass by with joyless pageantry, and pale
Into oblivion; now with blotted wills
Pass whispers that were emperors, and now
The silence of Osiris like a wind.
Religion with her legendary brood,
Myth with her family of fables, these
And swift mutations, all the moods of change,
Seasons of shining, moments of eclipse,
The orisons and vespers of the race
And all the panoramas of the past
Rush by her like a roar of memories.
Again she sees world after singing world,
Jubilant eras, blithe millenniums,
Pushing like barges from the shores of night
Into unshadowed morning, sees afar
The genesis of nations, sees the red
Ruins of victory in ashes fall
And rosy resurrections in the east.
Again she sees, where all is desolate,
The temple-teeming valley of the Nile
Wake into shining worship, sees amid
The matin hymns of chanting votaries
The low earth-beating brows devotional,
Prostrate on heights of prayer; and sees again,
As in a race, like some rash charioteer,
Belated Isis urge her milky steeds,
And when she darkles through the gates of hell
Sees monstrous idols mournful in the moon.
Again she sees, as in a glimmering mist,
While shepherding her flock of pyramids,
Imaginations pawing down the dark,
Maned with a wild magnificence; and sees
Over the embers of the yellow sun
The reddening memory of Rameses
Blush from oblivion—an orb of blood,
That dies in cloud pursued by armied souls!
And sees again, where all is emptiness,
The bristling citadels and towered walls
Of ancient capitals; sees on his car