Richard Doddridge Blackmore - Fringilla

"Thou, that art around and over
All we labour to discover;
Thou, to whom our world no more
Than a shell is on thy shore;

"God, that wast Supreme, or ever
Orus, or Osiris, saw;
God, with whom is no endeavour,
But thy will eternal law:

"We, who keep thy feasts and fastings,
We, who live on thy off-castings,
Here in low obeisance crave
Rich abundance of thy wave.

"Seven years now, for some transgression,
Some neglect, or outrage vile,
Vainly hath our poor procession
Offered life, and soul to Nile.

"Seven years now of promise fickle,
Niggard ooze, and paltry trickle,
Freshet sprinkling scanty dole,
Where the roaring flood should roll.

"Therefore are thy children dwindled,
Therefore is thine altar bare;
Wheat, and rye, and millet spindled,
And the fruits of earth despair.

"Men with haggard bellies languish,
Bridal beds are strewn with anguish,
Mothers sell their babes for bread,
Half the holy kine are dead.

"Is thy wrath at last relaxing?
Art thou merciful, once more?
Yea, behold the torrent waxing!
Yea, behold the flooded shore!

"Nile, that now with life-blood tidest,
And in gorgeous cold subsidest,
Richer than our victor tread
Stirred in far Hydaspes' bed;

"When thy swelling crest o'er-waveth
Yonder twenty cubit mark,
And thy tongue of white foam laveth
Borders of the desert dark,

"This, the fairest Theban maiden,
Shall be thine, with jewels laden;
Lift thy furrowed brow, and see
Lita , dedicate to thee!"

Thus he spake, and lowly stooping
O'er the Calasiris hem,
Took the holy water, scooping
With a bowl of lucid gem;

Chanting from the Bybline psalter
Touched he then her forehead altar;
Sleeking back the trickled jet,
There the marriage-seal he set.

"None of mortals dare pursue thee,
None come near thy hallowed side:
Nile's thou art, and he shall woo thee,—
Nile, who swalloweth his bride."

With despair's mute self-reliance,
She accepted death's affiance;
She, who hath no home or rest,
Shrank not from the river's breast.

Haply there she shall discover
Father, lost in wilds unknown,
Mother slain, and youthful lover,
Seen as yet in dreams alone.

Ha! sweet maid, what sudden vision
Hath dispelled thy cold derision?
What new picture hast thou seen,
Of a world that might have been?

From Mount Seir, Duke Iram roveth,
Three renewals of the moon:
To see Egypt him behoveth,
Ere his life be past its noon.

Soul, and mind, at first fell under
Flat discomfiture of wonder,
With the Nile before him spread,
Temple-crowned, and tempest-fed!

Yet a nobler creed he owneth,
Than to worship things of space:
One true God his heart enthroneth
Heart that throbs with Esau's race.

Thus he stood, with calm eyes scorning
Idols, priests, and their adorning;
Seeing, e'en in nature's show,
Him alone, who made it so.

"God of Abraham, our Father,
Earth, and heaven, and all we see,
Are but gifts of thine, to gather
Us, thy children, back to Thee.

"All the grandeur spread before us,
All the miracles shed o'er us,
Echoes of the voice above,
Tokens of a Father's love."

While of heaven his heart indited,
And his dark eyes swept the crowd,
Sudden on the maid they lighted,
Mild and haughty, meek and proud.

Rapid as the flash of sabre,
Strong as giant's toss of caber,
Sure as victor's grasp of goal,
Came the love-stroke through his soul

Gently she, her eyes recalling,
Felt that Heaven had touched their flight,
Peeped again, through lashes falling,
Blushed, and shrank, and shunned the light

Ah, what booteth sweet illusion,
Fluttering glance, and soft suffusion,
Bliss unknown, but felt in sighs,
Breast, that shrinks at its own rise?

She, who is the Nile's devoted,
Courted with a watery smile;
Her betrothal duly noted
By the bridesmaid Crocodile!

So she bowed her forehead lowly,
Tightened her tiara holy;
And, with every sigh suppressed,
Clasped her hands on passion's breast.

Twice the moon hath waxed and wasted,
Lavish of her dew-bright horn;
And the wheeling sun hath hasted
Fifty days, towards Capricorn.

Thebes, and all the Misric nation,
Float upon the inundation;
Each man shouts and laughs, before
Landing at his own house door.

There the good wife doth return it,
Grumbling, as she shows the dish,
Chervil, basil, chives, and burnet
Feed, instead of seasoning, fish.

Palm trees, grouped upon the highland,
Here and there make pleasant island;
On the bark some wag hath wrote—
"Who would fly, when he can float?"

Udder'd cows are standing—pensive,
Not belonging to that ilk;
How shall horn, or tail defensive,
Keep the water from their milk?

Lo, the black swan, paddling slowly,
Pintail ducks, and sheldrakes holy,
Nile-goose flaked, and herons gray,
Silver-voiced at fall of day!

Flood hath swallowed dikes and hedges,
Lately by Sesostris planned;
Till, like ropes, its matted edges
Quiver on the desert sand.

Then each farmer, brisk and mellow,
Graspeth by the hand his fellow;
And, as one gone labour-proof,
Shakes his head at the drowned shadoof

Soon the Nuphar comes, beguiling
Sedgy spears, and swords around,
Like that cradled infant smiling,
Whom, the royal maiden found.

But the time of times foe wonder,
Is when ruddy sun goes under;
And the dusk throws, half afraid,
Silver shuttles of long shade.

Opens then a scene, the fairest
Ever burst on human view;
Once behold, and thou comparest
Nothing in the world thereto.

While the broad flood murmurs glistening
To the moon that hangeth listening—
Moon that looketh down the sky,
Like an aloe-bloom on high—

Sudden conch o'er the wave ringeth!
Ere the date-leaves cease to snake,
All, that hath existence, springeth
Into broad light, wide-awake.

As at a window of heaven thrown up,
All in a dazzling blaze are shown up,
Mellowing, ere our eyes avail,
To some soft enchanter's tale.