A^hlnmXl'^ i 3 iiyi'ic!\ Cornell University Library PR 5219.R13M5 Memnon, and other poems. 3 1924 013 539 105 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 35391 05 NEW EDITION OF MR. READE'S POEMS. Price x8s., cloth, in Tlires Vols., fcp. 8vo, each of which may be had separately, Price 6j. THE POETICAL WORKS JOHN EDMUND READE. With Revisions and Additions. Vol, I. " Italy," "Youth as it Passed," "The Vision of the Ancient Kings,'' and " Lyrical Poems." Price 6s. Vol. II. " Man in Paradise," " Cain the Wanderer," ** The Deluge," and " Revelations of Life." Price 6j. Vol. IIL " Catiline," *'The Episode," "The Laureate Wreath," and Poems. Price 6s. *' To those who wish to form for themselves a comprehensive conception of the difference of poetic genius in the days of Byron, Scott, and Wordsworth, and in the present age, we recommend the last edition of Mr. Reade's Poems. They will there find poetic subjects of the largest scope, chaste in treatment, and elevating in cha- racter. Mr. Reade's ' Italy,' ' Reyelations of Life,* and 'Man in Paradise,* are each of them fine poems, designed on a large scale, and partaking singularly of the spirit bf Milton, Wordsworth, and Byron, stamped however with their own originality. . . ■K- « « « * * We are convinced that such Poems the world will not permit to die ; and we are glad to see this and the author's other productions submitted to the public in their mature and elaborated form." — London Revieiv. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. MEMNON: %nii m^tx foems. BY JOHN EDMUND READE. LONDON : EDWARD MOXON & CO., DOVER STREET. 1868. LONDON ; BKADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. CONTENTS. PAGE ISIS I MEMNON 3 THE FINAL ANCHORAGE 99 ON THE STATUE OP A BOY LISTENING TO A SEA-SHELL . . I05 THE NATURAL IMMORTALITY I07 DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR IO9 THE EPICUREAN . , II9 LIFE AND DEATH IN EDEN . . . ' . . . .122 A BIRTHDAY BY THE SEA SHORE I23 THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS . . . . . . I26 EVENING 141 ODE TO FAITH I43 SONNET 144 A MEMORY 145 THE DEATH OF RICHARD CCEUR DE LION . . . . I47 THE ASPIRATION ... 157 THE TEMPTER . . ... ... 158 MARGARET'S HYMN . 1 64 MARIE ANTOINETTE ... . . . . 166 FAITH AND RtASON . . .^ 1 74 i vi CONTENTS. PAGE THE THREE AGES '7° THE WARNINGS I^° THE sister's secret 184 KING BOABDIL's LAMENT FOR THE LOSS OF GRANADA . . I9I REMEMBRANCE '97 ORARE 199 SAUL AND THE WITCH OF ENDOR 20O SAUL IN THE BATTLE 207 JAEL AND SISERA 209 THE REMEMBRANCE 2I5 AGNES IN THE GARDEN '. . 220 WILLIAM TELL 222 THE VOICE OF POLAND TO EUROPE 23^ SENTIMENTS OF A NOBLE POLE 234 REFLECTIONS OF A POLISH PEASANT 235 FEELINGS OF THE POLE ON THE AUTOCRAT'S MANIFESTO . . 236 THE RECORD OF THE NATIONS 237 TO THE POLISH PATRIOTS 239 THE INTERVAL 24O VICTORY IN DEFEAT 242 BY THE ADRIATIC 244 ODYSSEY, — OPENING OF BOOK XI 245 ODYSSEY, BOOK XI. — THE MEETING OF AJAX AND ULYSSES . 249 MILTON 251 THE POET OF ART 253 PROMETHEUS BOUND 358 ODE TO MEMORY 263 AGNES SLEEPING , . . . 268 MATERIAL DIFFICULTIES 271 CONTENTS. vii PAGE THE DEAD BUTTERFLY 276 THE bird's nest 279 THE PEN AND THE POET . . 282 THE POPULAR AUTHOR 283 THE PRESENCE . 286 THE ANCESTRAL LEGEND ... ... 288 REMEMBER ME . . . i . . . . 293 THE SCHOOL PLAY-GROUND 296 THE FINAL FAREWELL . 303 THE TITAN ... .... . 306 DESPONDENCY REPROVED . . 307 THE DEATH SENTENCE . .... 3IO ISIS. O THOU antique divinity that liest In the deep heart of Egypt centering still, Isis ! that from behind thy veils repliest To the truth-searching spirit, on thy throne Seated, where. Dendera, with arching zone In the starred zodiac types the ineffable ; Or where at Phil>e sleep the mighty dead ; Or where the Pyramid, thy altar place, Rises, like thee, in soHtude sublime ; The glorious creed of a departed time. Buried with dust of ages round its base. Thee I invoke, and with a faith whose feeling' Is revelation of thy presence. Shed Thy inspiration on the Scene, revealing Action and thought that was. Do thou sustain The quickening fire, that, ere the spark be fled, Kindled by thee, as quenqhless may remain ! DRAMATIS PERSONS. MEN. Amasis, King of Egypt. Memnon. Menes. Seged.. Chief Hierophant. WOMEN. LiLis, daughter of Amasis. The Scene of the Drama is laid between Metnphis and the Pyramids. The time of action, three days. MEMNON. SCENE I. The Cave of Memnon, opening on a view of Memphis and the Pyramids. A Statue is placed in a recess of the Cavern. The work is done, creation of my hand, Wrought in the semblance of the clay-made man. could I, like a god, draw forth from Earth, Her secret of vitality, or catch A particle from yonder fiery orb, 1 would shape forth a living thing to answer The thought that moulded it. I would re-cast The original Man whose type is dead, to aid me In the great work of life I meditate ; To wake the flame of freedom among men. And make them feel their birthright. MEMNON. Priest of Nature, Beside her altar i have stood and drawn Spiritual meanings from her outward life. I felt her strength was based on Unity ; And the Stars, speaking from their spheres, revealed In the calm stedfastness of their bright course, A silent will attainable by man : Even thus my thought embodied shall become A visible purpose acting on mankind. Beautiful Egypt, and my own ! what eye Could gaze upon, nor bless thee ? Lo, where sleeps Memphis beneath the rays of yonder sun That magnifies her glories ; dome and tower. Softened in distance ; Mceris' flashing lake Catches the light, while round, meandering Nile Veins with her azure stream the golden sands. And all is happy there save human life : I see yon multitudes, even now, that close Swarming around yon rock-built pyramid. Like ants, but forward driven by lash and steel ; Altars of slavery, piled up from earth By men, brute-like, in all save human form. O could I forge my will into a power. And on this height become a mortal god. Hence would I hurl my thunders, crushing them Beneath their monuments. MEMNON. What man is this Who climbs the steep, and, with a purpose fixed, Intrudes upon the echoless sohtude ? He takes the pathway leading to my cave. Enter Menes. My Brother ! MEMNON. Hold. MENES. Dost thou not know me ? MEMNON. As A thing to slay, wert thou of lesser kin. MENES. Has solitude thus taught thee to disclaim Thy fellow men ? MEMNON. Rather, to free myself From ties like thine. Dar'st thou claim kin with me ? 'Dar'st thou confront me ? Brother once thou wast When thou swor'st fealty to liberty. MEMNON. To join with jme in the great work of life, Or die together ; then thou wast a man, With head erect, and brow that to look on Was to read deeds of honour. Now behold Thyself; thy limbs are cumbered with gilt trappings, The gauds and Boating vestments of a woman. Thy brow is bound with silk, not steel ; thy face, For with the body still the mind accords, Has cha|nged its character, and looks the lie Thy tongue is charged with. All Amasis' wealth Cannot remunerate thy self-abasement. Nor all his power inflict just vengeance on thee For the self-injury he has received. Hence ! — ere I cleave thee like a sapless branch From thy ancestral trunk. MENES. Thy solitude Has made thee savage, man embrutes alone. Compare our states, Amasis' throne with mine ; His marble halls with this great seat of Nature, This palace visited by sun and moon, And stars, and winds, strength bringing on their wings : Whose walls are hills, whose dome the starry heaven, MEMNON. Whose statues are the everlasting rocks, Whose floor the infinitely teeming ground, Whose pillars, trees, whose base, the orbfed world ; I am the King ; he, in his nether realm, Shut out from nature as firom human hearts, Begirt with spies and hirelings, the slave. Thou own'st the truth within thy secret heart, That he, the lord of his own thought, who looks On man with reverent eyes, as one he loves. He is the king, his kingdom in his breast, His passions are his subjects. Who has sent thee. For on thy disavowing brow is stamped A purpose not thine own ? Amasis — How Thy self-accusing blood tinges thy cheeks, Even with the faintest utterance of his name ! Tyrants are generated from the dust Of men's prostration. If the king must rule, 'Tis when his greatness is revealed to men In thoughts and deeds that benefit his kind, Until his rule is love, the hoHest, won MEMNON. From thankfulness. What has Amasis wrought ? Did he raise Memphis from the water's bed, And' teach the Nile to pay her homage, made Her bulwark and her safety ? Did he raise The deep foundations of yon lake, allaying Drought, when parched Nile has failed? even Moeris, stamped Immortally with its creator's name ? These are the acts that magnify the man, Proving his title to the crown he wears ; That he was chartered for the throne he holds. His deeds his manifest blessings. Therefore men Own the divinity that dwells within him, For, like the gods, his acts flowed from the love' He bare unto his brethren. MENES. Memphis loves him; Her priests applaud, the soldiers feel his hand Still open to their wants. MEMNON. Accursed the state That rests its faith on the applause of priests. That builds its strength upon the soldier's sword, Whose pillars should be based on justice, love. MEMNON. On mercy, and a people's reverence. Tyranny moulds the soldier to its will ; The sharpened tool to cleave away supports Protecting law had raised. Is silence freedom ? The unbroken spirit felt in the stem brow ? In the lip quivering with the inward storm ? In the eye lowered to earth, concealing hate . That waits its spring ? Where are the freemen's voices That should rise up like a triumphant hymn. The stir of hfe and motion ? I hear nought ; Day sinks and rises o'er that sullen city In dull succession ; when the fiery sun Scorches all life to covert, I behold Those living shoals driven to their loathfed task With lash and steel ; and life still ebbing round The pyramid's base, and still renewed again With sad and sullen victims. MENES. Deathless works Claim mortal sacrifice ; they shall record The fame of Egypt to the end of time. Ameliorate men's lot, thou dost convert The jealous freeman from the thoughtless slave: Is not brows' sweat, man's offering to health, Holier than blood ? : MEMNON. MEMNON. War makes men beasts of prey, Peace, which should yield them quiet, beasts of burthen. These the States' fruits, by fraud or force withheld ; The people are enslaved to hold them passive. The soldiers bribed to guard corruption. Brother ! Faintly thou plead'st the cause of tyranny : Thy looks belie thy tongue, and prove thou art not In heart a slave. Is it forgot by thee Amasis has usurped the crown and throne Of the great Shepherd-kings, who sate beneath The open sky, while Egypt gathered round And blessed those delegates of heaven ? Art thou So sunk in the slave's soulless apathy That thou forgivest him who has usurped Our father's throne ? erased his memory, And made thee — what thou art ? Doth the great Shade Of Mceris never haunt thee ? MENES. We are watched. MEMNON. Fear not. MEMNON. 13 MENES. Behold — in yonder niche enthroned A form stands with severe and solemn brows, Even as Moeris in the porch of Memphis. MEMNON. Thou seest the mould of my own hands ; the shape And image of a man, to show what men Once were, and may be still, and body forth A higher purpose told to thee in vain. MENES. Accursed these trappings I have borne, and day I wore them ; from the hour a freeman takes A tyrant's gift, his half of manhood's fled, And I was then the slave I am no more. Stem Image of our Sire ! receive the branch That hath rejoined the lonely scion left Of our ancestral line ! O, make me like My brother ! not in the high mind, built up With thought, and watching, and superior In its own nature, but in deeds ; and when His voice cries — "Do this!" — be my sword the light- ning Making it done when told. Hear the king's dream. 14 MEMNON. He sate upon his throne, the tribes of Egypt Prostrate before him kneeling ; when, behold An eagle swooping o'er him, seized his crown, And bore it to the eastern hill — even here. MEMNON. never let us mock the shows of dreams ! The gods talk not with man, but, when he sleeps. The sentinel eyes closed o'er the imprisoned cell. They commune with his slumber, from the past Foreshadowing things to come ; they point their wills While purposing our own. It is the hour When the great Spirit of the Universe Approaches nearer to the man, her child. Behold how darkly they communion with us, Pointing through extreme opposites their will Even from the bosom of my deadliest foe ; Making thee, herald, while embodying The faith and hope foreshadowed in my own. 1 am the seer, the interpreter of his dream. I am that eagle watching from this height. Until I could descend on that proud city. Bearing the avenging thunder on my wings. MENES. The greatness of the deed engenders fear. MEMNON. 15 MEMNON. Which is distrast of purpose. Thus I crush The phantom. men:?s. Whither dost thou bear thine Image ? MEMNON. Prove thou thy brother's faith, and follow me ! i6 MEMNON. SCENE II. Tke Pyramids, sunset. Memphis in the distance. In the front space groups of Egyptians, Memphians, Nubians, are gathered together. SEGED. Great day is slowly dying ; the red sun, Sloping his rays from off the eastern wall Leaves shadow ; let us breathe its gratefulness, While we watch him like a descending god, NUBIAN. Say, rather, breathe our curses. SEGED. They avail not, Relief of spleen that vents itself in sound ; Sour discontent, and impotence of will. The mind's disease, infecting healthful thought. Hear the rough truth : dare listen to your souls j The gods aid only the self-helping men : MEMisrON. 17 Have ye not heard — " to him the persevering, The immortal powers come swiftly"?* MEMPHIAN. Have we not Proved our endurance ? Can we burst these chains ? Can we contend against necessity, Or alter fate ? SEGED. Watch Opportunity; The finger ever on Time's dial-plate, Or slow, or quick, points once alike to all. AVithin our lives are moments given, gleams Lightning-like, flashing on our inward souls. When to act suddenly is to prevail Grasp fortune sleeping, she is yours ; but yield To circumstance which is necessity, That, not opposed, is, for awhile, disarmed. We are slaves all, our passions are our lords ; Were life the curse thou say'st, it were unborne. If happy, deeper still were felt its loss. Grieve not, nor threaten — both alike are vain ; Hope tells you life is something more than shadow. • Zoroaster. i8 MEMNON. MEMPHIAN. Counsel heals not the wound that is inflamed ; Passion confessed relieves the heart o'ercharged. SEGED. The scales of Justice are poised even here. The high and low are prostrated alike, Lowered by death to one equality. They lived in fear, we grew in hope ; they felt not The vigorous flow of uncorrupted blood, We knew not passionless satiety : Own ye not thus the gods' large measure dealt ? NUBIAN. We welcome toil so tempered with repose ; We would be happier. SEGED. Happiness is hope. Whose grave and cradle is the heart of man. We are drawn to it by necessity, That is our hfe, the shadow we create, And chase, until we die. Our happiness Was the pursuit ; it filled the hours of life Till the race ended at the mortal goal. Thus kings and men are on equality ; Alike in life as deatli ; unto the one MEMNON. 19 Health was accorded and a blameless conscience, The hut and the free sunshine ; to the other, Power and unrest, the mountain and the storm. Both meet at the same gates qf death at last ; Both enter, and with no pre-eminence. NUBIAN. Our goal of life and boundary are here. These mountain walls shut out the light from us, Burying their secrets in their inmost caves That none return to tell. MEMPHIAN. And thinkest thou Yon Pyramid hides mysteries ? NUBIAN. My post Fronts the great western gate. I have beheld Many that enter, few that have returned. SEGED. Enough the stamp of Priesthood is set on them, Who else shall penetrate their mysteries ? There, it may be, lurk cells, where tortured life Groans forth its plaints or agonies unheard ; Caves of concealment, or of treasures veiled 3 MEMNON. As in their temples. Has it not gone forth Where men confer with haste and bated breath, Their hollow Idols by themselves are tongued, Until they fleece the wealthy to our bareness ? Think'st thou they dared free those who wrought their net, Meshes that trapped the unwary ? Deemest thou The gems that glittering shine through porph)rry halls That never see the light, are heaped for none ? Is the feast spread before satiety ? The wine-cup filled and drained, nor crowning woman The ministering spirit ? Is't not known How the dark-eyed, the beautiful of Memphis, The ripest forms, round limbed, deep bosomed women, Offer their vows to priesthood, and return Restlessly from the temple with pale cheeks, And eyes confessing an unuttered wrong ? O were those hidden sanctuaries shown. Those lighted halls where nightly are convened Orgies of unreined license, gods and men Would turn away from man's imaginings ! MEMPHIAN. Hist, Seged ! lest yon watchful guard shall hear thee. SEGED. Friend ! hadst thou fallen in the world as I, MEMNON. 21 Thy heart still clinging on to one frail hope, Till the reed failed thee, light were then thy care What slip or trifle shook thee out of life. NUBIAN. Seged, thou art wise, and reverend thy grey hairs ; I do repent that I forgot to ease Thy daily task. MEMPHIAN. Andl— SEGED. Nay, friends ! I thank you. These hands though weak, can work; they helped to raise 'The walls of Thebes, yet I have lived to see Memphis surpass her. If such changes come In one man's life, what may we hope will last ? Yon Pyramids. SEGED. Even so, they have space enough. Their base the throes of earthquake would survive, Or deluges, as Hebrew captives tell. t MEMNON. MEMPHIAN. Moeris spent not his time in building toys Immovable ; he laboured for mankind. Look at yon Memphis reared in old Nile's bed ; His lake of never-ebbing waters, where He and his queen sit on their marble thrones. Memphis was built to be upheld by men, To bring forth men when failing, she shall perish. MEMPHIAN. Can Memphis fall ? behold how she is based. The hills have turned their course to give her space ; The waters circle her, with ramparts breasted : She is incorporate with Nature. Yet, Even in my time the Nile has made some head. Despite the embankments and the jealous care That watches him, or, the rich offerings made. He ever and anon, among the groves And gilded palaces that hide his banks, Gives serious token he has not forgot His ancient reign, though men have clipped him in. MEMNON. 23 EGYPTIAN. I trust the Oracle ; and that has said "Memphis will stand while she has hearts to guard her." SEGED. And I — for did not Mceris speak the words ? He knew what he had left : he built not walls To be the shelter-nooks for coward fear ; He left them purposely a stronghold : weak, If tenanted by sloth or treachery. NUBIAN. Let them look to it ; they have two foes to watch, And both inexorable — Man and Nature. EGYPTIAN. What enemy should we fear ? SEGED. The Persian, chief, Who watches still with jealous eyes, while burning To avenge her losses. MEMPHIAN. Would that I had seen The fall of his proud Sardis. 24 MEMNON. SEGED. I beheld it. Mceris chose me to bear his conquering banner. Thou? SEGEO. Even I. I dreamed not then of age and slavery : He died on his return, and did confide His infants to Amasis. The Priests reared them : At last the elder and the stronger fled ; The other bowed the knee, dependent on The tyrant for his bread. MEMPHIAN. Thou hast not heard The news from Memphis. SEGED. How? MEMPHIAN. Menes has sought His brother ; their retreat is hidden still. MEMNON. 25 SEGED. Even this looks well, yet not enough for hope. Youth kindles up the spark to instant flame ; From age 'tis struck with effort, ever lapsing Back to the coldness of its nature. Now He is in manhood, when the fruits should come And what the growth ? Men talk of him as sage, A watcher of the sun and moon and stars ; Would that the gods would lend him but a ray Of their ethereal fires ! He might have tried ; When the train 's laid a spark will light the flame ; To perish in the attempt would have been To leave his memory MEMPHIAN. The Prefect comes ! 26 MEMNON. SCENE III. Prefect of the Guard, with Soldiers : Memnon and Menes, in the distance. PREFECT. How, slaves ! Ye rest in shadow, while ye leave Drone-like, the wall to us ! Forth in the sun ! Or, by Osiris, he who loiters dies. MENES. Gods, is then man debased, even brute-like, thus ? Brother ! it is the award of the just gods, That they who ape their attributes are blind. Hemmed round by tools, ministers of their will, They- hear not murmuring nations. Hence their pride That deadens into apathy, or hate That wreaks itself in action ; they wake not From their dull life of torpor, until Death, MEMNON. 27 The kingly leveller,- calls them to the realm Where all are brethren. MENES. These men have lost All semblance of their manhood. MEMNON. All save one. Mark him above the rest pre-eminent In stature as in bearing. His large frame Is girded with the sinewy nerves of strength, Like the strained cords of a storm-beaten bark. He stands among them as the giant palm, Unstooping to the whirlwind and the sands Scorching anil blasting its unsplintered arms. Haughty submission from each gesture looks ; As if his conscious spirit felt the abasement His body bowed to. Mark — the guard eyes him, Feeling the pride that brow scorns to conceal. PREFECT. Slave — thou art idle, gazing still on sfrangers ; It is thy last offence, this faulchion ends thee. 28 MEMNON. MEMNON. Forward — and stop the profanation ! MENES. Hold! Die in thy tyranny. [The Prefect falls, the crowds gather tumulttwusly round, MEMNON. Back. — Hear me all ! Egyptians, countrymen, if but in name ! Stand. — ^Whither do ye flee save from yourselves ? ' Why is fear stamped upon your stricken brows ? One foe has fallen, myriads of yourselves Are daily slaughtered, yet you look amazed, As if a, heavier doom could fall upon you, Than you have borne. AVhere is your virtue fled ? The life that throbbed in your great fathers' hearts ? Behold your monuments of slavery ! Altars of immolation, the red lash Scourging you onward until you became Insensible from suifering, You bear The badge of slavery around your necks : Look in your breasts, you feel that there is stamped The brand no searing-iron can efface, For it has entered in your souls ! MEMNON. 29 You knelt To the usurper j you held forth your necks The living stepping-stones beneath his heel ! You first -debased yourselves, and thus taught men How to debase you. Comes not strength from you, Wealth, power, and bhnd obedience, that form The triple pillars of his throne ? You hailed Your golden serpent, gave it maddening stings. Then marvelled that its poison touched your hearts. You can be overcome but by yourselves ; The invincible indwelling is with man When arming for his birth-right ! I invoke you By memory of your wrongs and children's rights. Strike, while the power is poised in your right hands ! Even while I speak these winged words, I see Lightning-like freedom flash forth from your eyes ! You look like men who waited but a leader. Behold the Image of your hero-King, Wrought by those hands, — / am great Mceris' son. THE MULTiTUpE [rising tumultuously). Leader, and liberator, lead thou on ! We follow thee to Memphis. Seize the guard ! 30 MEMNON. MEMNON. But slay not : let no stain of blood profane The holy wreath of freedom we have won. Let our thanksgiving-sacrifice arise Without a sigh from Egypt's answering heart, To the attesting gods. We have o'ercome ; The triumph of the hour, the victory Of force, is nothing ; a wild storm that rolls Onward, and is forgotten. Holy peace Is of substantial and silent growth, Whose roots spring from the heart, and the deep sense Of justice planted there. THE MULTITUDE. King — live for ever! Yoke, one and all, to his triumphal car. Bear him the conqueror. You said you were free ; Do freemen kneel to aught save the high gods ? Your fellow labourer, I ; one with yourselves ; I point you forth the paths you had forgot ; As brethren, alike, march on to Memphis. MENES. Brother ! and hop'st thou with these crowds unarmed, MEMNON, 31 Howe'er in resolution panoplied, -To break the strength of armies disciplined ? To waken trust within the popular heart, O'erawed by power? who re:ad in innovation. Danger, though holy Peace beside her walked. And laurelled Victory stood by her side. O, rather arm ! and confident in strength Let valour point the spear. Thus would I act Read I not with profounder trath the heart ; The law of right and duty, and the sense Of an inviolate freedom throbbing there. One human voice may waken it to hfe ! List to the thunder from yon multitudes, That shall have answer from great Egypt's heart. Echoed throughout all time, and space, and life. Yea, through convulsions that shall topple thrones. We enter Memphis, and the myriads Shall join with us ; the sound of our great coming Shall leave her halls and temples tenantless. THE MULTITUDE We triumph, we are conquerors — 32 MEMNON. MEMNON. In thought, Which is the will's foreshadowed victory ; Onward to Memphis. THE MULTITUDE. Liberty or death ! MEMNON. 33 SCENE IV. MEMPHIS : PALACE OF THE KING. Amasis, throned: Chief Hierophant: Prefect of the Guard: Courtiers, &=€. HIEROPHANT. The king is moody, and his brow o'ercast FREFECT. It is his wont, since spake the oracle ; He may raise Pyramids to touch the stars, Ere plucked the eagle's wing. Who whispers? hierophant. Life Of Egypt, live for ever ! thy slave, Menes, Is absent still. amasis. Let his head answer ; seek D 34 MEMNON. His brother's haunt, the Ml-grown serpent, bring him Before us chained, this prophet of the hills, Star-gazing wizard, and interpreter Of signs in heaven and earth. Let him unfold Our dream, or die : on your lives see it done. [Exeunt Hierophant, &'c. AMASIS. The passions we indulge in veil our eyes ; The film withdrawn we see our impotence, The penalty that waits on reinless will. I spared these scions of the old stock, now Grown into strength, and casting me in shadow. Nightly I mount the loftiest Pjrramid Aiid watch the heavens, but my star is dim. Methinks of late, or that my eyes are weak With watching, or the truth beheld, a mist Doth gather slowly o'er it and obscure. At midnight will I offer sacrifice To the high gods, and as it reeks to heaven Observe the aspect of my destiny. The worst confronted, we oppose the will To meet and bear with fortitude ; suspense Deadens the faculty, till it succumbs Without an effort. [^Shffuis wilhin. What alarms are those MEMNON. That rise like distant thunders, or the sweep Of rushing waters ? Enter Prefect of the Guard. O king, live for ever ! The enemy are gathered at thy gates ; Alarm is spread through Memphis. 35 From whence broke Rebellion ? PREFECT. From the Pyramids. AMASIS. Behold, The oracular answer of the gods fulfilled. Triple the guard, and close the palace gates. But wherefore ? Hold — be they asunder thrown And open as the winds. What should we fear ? Silent defences are the mightiest. Habit and memories of reverence The bulwarks are of sovereignty, whose growth Is in the heart of man, that must bow down To a power greater than his own. His nature Is to repose on shadows that appear D 2 36 MEMNON. Palpable substance ; customs and forms have weight, Traditional powers and bulwarks they of thrones, Awing aggression when it dare intrude Behind the veils that shelter majesty. [Efiier Memnon, Menes, and ike Feovl'E iumuliuotes/y. THE MULTITUDE. Death to the tyrant, — slay him on his seat ! MEMNON. Hold ! Would you stain your victory, to offer To the high gods so poor a sacrifice ? Egyptians, subjects ! is the reverence due To kings forgotten ? Wherefore these wild shouts ? I deemed the Ass3rrian had re-entered Memphis. Know ye I am the majesty of Egypt ? Fountain of justice, power, and ward of law? That a divinity protects my throne Beyond aggressions of mortality ? MEMNON. Well pointest thou the olden ritual ; The time-worn channels of grey habitude, That Nile-like have their overflow. Dar'st thou MEMNON. Preach laws to us, or human or divine ? Justice and mercy shall award thy doom, To show thee, fallen as we are, we have not Forgotten our humanities. AMASIS. Who art thou? Unarmed, in lowliest garb, who standest there As if thou wert the king, and I the slave ? MEMNON. , Thou art : mine eye attests the ascendant mind, For it o'errules thine own. Thou feel'st I am The herald of the will of the just gods ; In my hands, freedom, at my feet, oppression Crushed, even in thee ! I enter, fate-like here. To tell thee thy brief reign is o'er. Thou see'st, Memnon, great Moeris' son, — descend thy throne. MENES. He moves not ; by the sun, this javelin 37 Hold! Revenge but apes the justice she is not, When blopd-stained hands her holy balance grasp : Offended are her reverend attributes Usurped by passion. Descend from thy throne ! 38 MEMNON. AMASIS. Never ! the majesty aggressed of kings Within me swells. Slaves ! Egypt's wealth is yours In following mte : fear not their serried ranks; A triple power of strength the monarch's name. I lead you ; valour may defend a crown, — Infamy, never ! THE MULTITUDE. Slay the tyrant. — Enter LiLIS. Save, O save my father ! If you are men, and bear Hearts that own Nature's ties ; if woman's voice Ere moved you through your wives and daughters, hear My father, speak — what seek these iron men ? Thy crown ? resign it, so thy life be spared. MEMNON. Woman ! thy words save not Amasis' life. Shielded by mine. If he forgot he ruled Men like himself, themselves these men forget not. LILIS. Who is this stately Man with solemn brows, And breast unruffled where all else is storm ? Impassive as a statue, and unarmed, MEMNON. 39 Mailed men around him threatening death. He looks As doth Osiris. MEMNON. I am Moeris' son. LILIS.' My father, thou art lost ! MEMNON. Say rather, saved : If in that breast throbs virtue, and a love For hearts all human as thine own — thy brow Answers me ! — then, thou wilt shed tears of joy, To know these men have won their liberty ; And, as great Egypt's daughter, wilt rejoice They spared a tyrant in thy sire. LILIS. Alas, Speaks he the truth ? enclosed within these walls, I have known none save thee. Can thy calm front Ruffle with passion ? can the voice I love. Doom slavery and death ? — it cannot — Egypt Takes not thy life from me which is my own. So are we bound together. O great king ! For such thou art, have mercy — ^greater Man, Have feeling. 40 MEMNON. MEMNON. Citizens ! ye see by this, None are all evil though it may appear. There doth not live on the wide earth a thing, However foul its nature, that hath not Something of godlike in it ; some faint stamp Of Him who made it ; that would not he mourned By some lone thing to which it was endeared. Behold this man, to human sufferings dead, Claims one who loves, yea, clings to him alone. From memories of affections. Thus he owns Great Nature's sympathies. Daughter, thy sire Is king no more ; as Man he shall be safe. Nor need thy tears to aid him. Brother, lead her To her retreat, and guard her as thine own Till our auguster duties are fulfilled. Amasis ! though discrowned, droop not ; retain The semblance of a man, lest men despise, As well as hate thee. Come down from thy throne, And follow. AMASIS. Whither? To the Pyramids, MEMNON. 41 The grave where freedom rose as from the dead ; There, hear the voice of justice and of Egypt. THE PEOPLE. The Voice of nations is the voice of justice ! MEMNON. The Voice of justice is the award of heaven ! 42 MEMNON. SCENE V. The Pyramids — Egypt gathered round them. MEMPHIAN. Behold a spectacle that gods and men May contemplate with joy. What think'st thou, Seged ? SEGED. I gaze as one who sees his dream fulfilled. NUBIAN. Memphis rose, giant-like as if from sleep j Her citizens fulfilled a duty more Than claimed a birthright won. They felt freemen, Hence grew their purpose and deliberate valour. Slaves or by will or nature, they had seized Occasion, in brute licence wallowing. For when the soul's debased, the sense embrutes, Blind from the loss of guidance. MEMNON. 43 EGYPTIAN. Behold the priest of Freedom by her shrine. Thus great is Moeris' son ; methinks we share His inspiration, he is as a god. SEGED. Say rather image of the godlike felt Within our hearts. Looking on him, we feel The hero-worship natural to man : We offer homage to ourselves ; we feel Our natures are allied by kindred ties : He is the heavenward lightning, we, the fuel. Waiting the spark of the enkindled flame. NUBIAN. Behold yon hosts rolled, Ocean-like around ! Trees, towers, and domes, are eyed with their quick life. The fields swarm with an ever-moving host. Insect-like flashing on their golden wings ; And the Nile bears upon its azure breast A living waftage. Glorious spectacle ! Infinite bosoms throbbing with one heart. They stretch to the hprizon line, the sky, The blue sky, circling round them, hallows all : 44 MEMNON. Yon sun from his pure altar blesses them. Their moving is the sound of many waters ; Shouts swell from them in audible thunders, dying In distance, like the voices of the gods Heard through far heaven. MEMPHIAN. The king ascends his throne. Clad in the white robes of the Hierophant : He stretches forth his hands to them and speaks. A solitary Voice ! but not a breath That shall fall echoless on the heart of life, Responded through all time, when this great day, Even Egypt's self shall, like a shadow, sink Into oblivion's dusty nothingness ! Egyptians, men, and brethren ! — and ye. Fragments of nations round me, who will spread This day's deeds to the ends of earth, — hear me ! I see a Spectacle the gods behold Applauding from their thrones ; a people moved By one great purpose ratified by .heaven. Justice and virtue fled with liberty ; MEMNON. 45 Industry died, the grasp of tyranny On his nerved arm its sinews paralysed : Law knelt to power, and fear to priesthood bowed. Then swelled the impulse through a nation's heart, When want and liberty no more are sounds, But the' substantial gods to whom men kneel ; When tyranny is felt a palpable weight And action is necessity. You rose. Ocean-like, rending chains, that were of sand. Behold the Man ! — I call on you to say If yet Amasis reigns ? if one attest Why he should rule, by the immortal gods We listen to him. The Usurper's hand Shall be held pure, who wrenched from feebler grasp The crown, to embody his great thought in deeds. Elected by the gods, such men have risen. The guiding lights of nations : hero-seers, They are raised up to us to guard the truth Through time's wild fluctuations. Answer, Egypt ! Eg]rpt stands answerless : but silence speaks A nation's heart I stand the interpreter Of their great will. The Priest of Liberty, I here discrown Amasis ; in my hands Behold the diadem. 46 MEMNON. THE MULTITUDE. Crown thou thyself; Thou only shalt be our anointed king ! MENES. Brother ! obey, — august a Nation's voice : See'st thou convulsion rising ? MEMNON. Egypt, hear ! If I sought crowns to gratify ambition, I had not called you but enthroned myself, Placing my foot upon Amasis' neck. I aimed at holier fame ; it shall be said I brought from heaven the fire of liberty, Less to remould than recreate the man. MEMPHIAN. Reject the crown? — by all the gods, he errs : Seged ! hear'st thou, or art thou turned to stone That thou dost stand and gaze impassive there ? SEGED. He stands above the hosts immovable, A granite mountain amid clouds and wind ; The roar of waves and clang of choughs below Its sunlit heights inaudible ! MEMNON. 47 MEMPHIAN. Behold, He motions to the Judges of the land ; The sages gather round him as he speaks. MEMNON. Elders of Egypt ! grey and reverend men ; You are the venerable time-proved pillars, That make the stately pile of government Immovable ; and give it symmetry, And strength, and grace, and beauty. Your clear eyes The windows are that let in light on flaws From time's decay, that sage experience heals. You are the stars who from your steadfast height Shed influence down upon the lower herd; Who from your seats of grave and sober state. Justice and mercy watching either side. Inspire the decent reverence you deserve. You are the watchers spread throughout the land, The Nile-like arms of justice, where the weak. And strong, alike resort j in your staid hands The keys are of religion and the laws. I call your wisdom to a state o'erthrown : Corruption, bom of infinite abuse, The brood of tyranny, infected it : Restore it to its "pristine eminence ; 48 MEMNON. You will not shrink to crush the ills you see, Hidden from eyes of kings ; and you will hear The appealing voices of the wronged, unheard By the dull ears of pride and apathy. This diadem profaned by him who wore, I here devote in solemn sacrifice To the immortal gods, whom I invoke To ratify the offering. NUBIAN. Lo, they kneel As if he were a god descended there ! SEGED. Whenever have men stood irreverent Before the godlike by their acts revealed ? Nature's religion rooted in his heart, Worshipping them Man bows before himself, What other image could he shape, its type Greatest in patriots shown. My brethren, hear ! This great day's deed is yours who dared proclaim The immutable laws of freedom. In what dwells The worth, the strength, and glory of a State ? Not shown in statutes, law, nor ordinance, MEMNON. 49 These the restraints of necessary rule ; It rests on duty, law, on self-respect, That spurns at gain or office ; on pure faith, On patriot love of country and of home, On old tradition, rich in golden stores Of all the wise have said, the brave have done. On the staid purpose parenting the deed ; On mutual kindred answered from the heart. In the revivifying life it gives. Its power and spring from its self-freshening source. Freedom lives in us, bom from our self-will : Our natural birthright, neither bought nor sold ; The base man clings to chains struck from his hands ; To crawl worm-like upon his dungeon floor ; The one would feel a slave in freedom's arms, The freeman, chain-bound, in his heart is free. Look to yon Sun that shines on all alike ; To Earth, our nourishing mother ; to the stars. That shed one influence down. Great Nature shows Thus ye are brethren joined in faith and love, Which make aggression mockery. Unite Even as one human family, and rear An altar to the gods and liberty. THE PEOPLE. Unfold our duties as our liberties ; The cause of evil — 5° MEMNON. Is within yourselves. Disorder is from self-indulgence born ; Passion and license petrify the heart Till deadened to its pangs. Desire of power Engenders tyranny on hearth and throne. Tax, tribute, want, debasement, slavery, The hopelessness of ever baffled right, And the despair that eats into the heart. These, the wild stings, by tyranny inflamed, Till goaded nations into madness rise, Whose springing from that torpor is revenge, Brute-like, and merciless ! Reforming wrongs. Remember you are human, and accord To man the mercy that you hope. Be law Of natural right inviolate, and -hallowed The bounds of property : Justice meted them. And be her land-marks sacred. If transgressed, Man is again the savage ; might is right. Fount of all virtue, justice each assigns His own, by wisdom or by valour won. Fear first taught gathered men to arbitrate For self-protection, and the feeling sense Of rightful property ; brute strength was felled By the nerved arm of Law ; her staid hands paved The road along which States to triumph march ; Wealth, peace, and freedom, guardians of the way. MEMNON. 51 THE PEOPLE. We claim life's blessings with our brethren ; We seek to crush ills — MEMNON. When they are revealed. Be healthful discipline of passion taught, Till exercise be love ; and duty's chains Hang lightly round the neck like wreaths of flowers ; So shall you feel self-reverence, and poise The scales of justice, that atonement weighing Unto the wronged, and virtue her reward, Blends discords into harmonies. THE PEOPLE. We ask To live free men, and freedom to enjoy. But in your liberty be merciful ; Respect humanity whose lowest chords Yield unison. Let Law protect the slave ; Let the worn artisan have needful rest ; The tiller of the earth its produce share. Be mutual interchange of gain revered. Even sacred commerce whereon blessing hangs. Let man relax from toil, he is not brute E 2 Sz MEMNON. But human ; let him generate sympathies, Whose freshest flowers from rudest soils arise. Let his affections grow from his repose ; Until each hearth-stone, like a branching tree, Sheds blossoms round it of the beautiful. In social concord let the general voice Speak for the common weal ; thus Vice shall be Debased, and golden virtue gain her crown. Let each give suffrage for his rulers ; right Highest, to be aspired ; the law so strong, The authorities of state, the public faith. Religion's Laws, yea, virtue's majesty Rest on the law of duty and of right, Whose throne is in the soul. THE PEOPLE. We claim our freedom. To test their virtues and assert our own. Answer, ye gods ! A Nation's voice calls on you To ratify an oath, not echoless In your immortal mansions. This great day Has made us brethren, Amasis ! — ^be Thy safeguard, this embrace ! Depart, a man MEMNON. 53 Even as ourselves. We are not what thou deem'st : There comes a time for nations, as for men, When they feel prostrate j all they might have been, And are not. May'st thou, Amasis ! hear That inward voice of the awakened heart. The work is done, the man un-kinged : behold Where he tracks onward through yon myriads His solitary way ! Swear here an oath I Invoking to it the immortal gods, That he, whose foot has trodden on your necks. Whose iron seared your hearts, whose hand shed blood Water-like, round these altars, shall pass on Unharmed, yea, guarded. Swear it, brethren, by Your father's hallowed bones, by your great love For Egypt, here, regenerate ; by your hope Of life hereafter ; by that oath profound, Holiest, heard o'er us, echoed from beneath, Thrice binding, thrice attesting and revered. By Him who sleeps at Phil/e ! * THE PEOPLE. We here swear ! MEMNON. Behold the crownless man treads through yon hosts, * Osiris. 54 MEMNON. That wave-like part from him ; through myriads He walks alone. Your oath is ratified ; One bond of feeling has united us : You have not stained your mjrrtle-wreath with blood, But your great work is done, content is full. Peacefully to our hearthstones we depart ; To feed upon the past, and the great future To contemplate in silence. THE PEOPLE. Yoke a car, Bear him to Memphis. MEMNON. Your high oaths remember. O let not freedom even in triumph fail In self-respect ! Lead onward to the Nile ; There take the blessing I invoke on you Ere I return to solitude. NUBIAN. He goes With steps as self-sustained as if the world Were dust beneath him ; kings and men the toys Of his capricious will. MEMPHIAN. He must descend MEMNON. 55 To suffrage like the rest, his own decree ; Mine were his death or banishment SEGED. Say, friend ! Why would you banish him ? MEMPHIAN. And who art thou Who look'st— SEGED. As one who reads your inmost hearts. I waited for the old leaven manifest, Ingratitude, that is your nature's food ; The cloud still dimming the sun's transient ray ; The viper's trail that fouls the track of virtue. Why would you banish him 7 He is too great ; He makes us feel we are inferior, And thus we hate him. SEGED. Even so^ man works With tools of imperfection and they fail him ; 56 MEMNON. Who apptehends the perfect ? virtue still Must stand alone, her crown a wreath of thorns, Envy, mistrust, and hate, her ministers : You the light motes that on the sunbeams flit Of fortune : let a mist obscure them, then The meanest of you brighter is than he : Plot on, I leave you to your purposes. MEMPHIAN. It is the aged Seged, soured by time And disappointment ; heed not — let him pass. THE PEOPLE. Life to Amasis and the holy Priesthood ! MEMNON. 57 SCENE VI. The Cave ofM.^M.-SQ'^ — Sunrise. MEMNON. Behold the great work done. Yon Memphis gains A fresher glory with her Hberty, And blends her purity with Nature round. It is the moral power she has won Invests her outward form. I hear the sounds Of infinity life like Ocean in repose, Rising and falling in one harmony, Whose unisons are felt. O Freedom ! thou The work hast wrought ; no phantasy thou art, A living substance and a presence felt Within man's heart that feels thee most when chained. Then sleepless is the .undjdng hope that lives, Till deadened by the chill of hopelessness, And the despair that prostrates to the dust Till slavery is nature. Lo, my brother ! Like one, who flying from the foe, ascends 58 MEMNON. The pathway, hastily looking still behind ; His robe is torn, his faulchion red with blood — MENES. Brother !— all's lost, fly thou from Egypt — MEMNON. How? The priests have crowned Amasis, and the troops With donatives are from the people won. The slaves are steeped in brute forgetfulness ; The citizens are marked out by the King, And slaughtered : thou, above them all, art sought. I fought through the thick crowd, and I am here. MEMNON. Gods, be revenge your own ! — as they have spurned The gift you gave, so let their tyrants spurn them In their embruted natures. Let them pile The altars of their slavery to the clouds. Until your lightnings scathe them in their ruins ! Vain is't and weak to mourn ingratitude, Which is man's heart. I came too soon on earth, Ere he had drank the dregs of slavery's cup, MEMNON. 59 And proved its bitterness. My part is played : I shall be registered in after time, As the first Man who, rising, dared confiront The giant Tyranny ; who proved to men The hoUowness of their idolatry : Who breathed in him the life of liberty, Until he felt its ray was drawn from heaven. My name shall be a watchword to mankind To emulate my deeds. I have awoke The spark that dies not even in the grave, Life-like, transfused from sire to son ; crushed down, But quenchless, waiting the rekindling flame. They come ! — MEMNON. Not here ; be not this cave profaned. For it is sacred. Wait me. Slaves ! without ; My brother, on 1 — now, to Amasis lead. 6o MEMNON. SCENE VII. The Temple of Osiris. Amasis, enthroned. — Chief Hierophant, Prefect, and Guards. AMASIS. , The gods look down and sanctify my right : Egypt shall reek like one vast altar-place ; The slaves are soothed, the citizens proscribed, The soldiers mine. But the great triumph-wreath Is yet withheld me. Enter CHIEF Prefect of the Guard. O King, live for ever ! Memnon, within thy gates, awaits his doom. chief hierophant. Thou favourite of the gods ! thy wish is breathed. And ratified, even with its utterance : Wherefore not slay the rebel ere his tongue Profane thine ears ? MEMNON. 6 1 Bring him before our presence. He enters with a mein and brow sedate, As when descending from my throne, I owned The inferior mind. His spirit masters mine, And greater seems in power withheld from him. He doth appear more kingly in those chains, Subjected to his will. He may love life : The face is as a mask, by cowards worn. As by the brave. I would o'ercome his spirit, And trample on that will which masters mine ; Till then, chains, tortures, death, are but oblations, Feeding the pride they overcome not. Enter ^ Memnon {guarded). Slave! Thou standest there a monument to mark How vain the rebel's hope. Thou, yesterday, ' Did'st brave me ; in a day thy power is gone ; The gods have throned the rightful king and made Thy neck his footstool. MEMNON. Thy heart feels the falsehood Thy tongue has said ; thine eye succumbs to mine ; Thou feel'st in me the ascendant thou dost own. 62 MEMNON. Thou sittest there the slave ; I stand, the King : These chains subjected to a will as fixed As the immortal gods. AMASIS. They have betrayed thee- MEMNON. Who dares to fathom their mysterious wills ? Why strike the lightnings their own altars ? — why Doth Nile, gorged daily with new sacrifice, Lay waste the lands of his adorers ? — ^why Art thou ordained to trample upon Egypt ? I answer thee ; storms purify the airs ; The Nile leaves earth behind her rich with spoils, And thou, thy memory living in thy tomb, Shalt rise o'er Egypt as a warning-mark, And as a beacon against future kings. And sayest thou that I am in thy power ? Can'st thou my spirit bend by chains or death ? They give the wings to flee a form I hate. For it resembles thine. CHIEF HIEROPHANT. Great king of kings ! Behold the rebel seated. MEMNON. 63 MEMNON. I assert My sovereignty in my ancestral hall ! CHIEF HIEROPHANT. King ! wilt thou hear his blasphemies ? — MEMNON. He will. Priest ! kneVst thou human nature as divine, Then would'st thou know, who dares to speak the truth Is heard, be his words adders' stings, for they Reanimate life in the palled hearts of kings. I dethroned thee, when thou before great Egypt Stood'st like a child. She has forsworn her oath ; The gods withheld the gift she merited not ; Leaving thee, still, her scourge, and taking me From paths I trod in vain ; our parts are played. Pile up thy pyramids heavenward ; thou art Necessity's tool ordained, conjoined with death, To sweep away from earth AMASIS. Hear first thy doom. Thou prid'st thyself on fame, that after life. Fed by the breath of memory, which dead, Avails thee, nothing. Records of thy sires 64 MEMNON. Shall be erased, till, nought recalls they were. Thyself, with morning's light, shall be impaled ; Thy body burnt, thy ashes cast to winds, To be forgotten as thy actions. . MEMNON (springing to his feet). Never ! My limbs may wither in the air, my dust Be scattered to the winds of heaven, my sires May be forgotten in their ashes, but My name will last till time shall be no more ! And these the immortal accessories are To robe it with a glory of its own. Think'st thou the soul of liberty is dead, The sun that lights the world, extinguished here ? I am an atom of that deathless life Existing through all time, and change, a spark Of that flame burning in the heart of man. Unquenchable in ashes ! CHIEF HIEROPHANT. Gag the slave. Who dares arraigs. anointed majesty ! MEMNON. Away, and lead me to my doom ! — I waste My passion on the sti;aws, and am profaned MEMNON. 6S In breathing this attainted air ! I pant For the great martyrdom that I have sought. I have left deeds and words that shall be felt With an earthquake convulsion through the world. The solitary voice may be forgot ; But states o'erthrown by tyranny, and wasted By its fell progeny, war, famine, plague, Shall teach this truth made visible to all : Nature's eternal laws of right and freedom Shall not be trampled on in vain ! I fall, A cedar riven by the levin-stroke, Its trunk unstooping still. I stand erect, And welcome as a friend pale-faced despair, I bare my naked heart to her embrace, While she doth lead me to the death I love, Making death lovely by abhorring life Even as I. Wreak your worst malice on This cell that holds the imperishable spirit. That, in its citadel, shall laugh to scorn Assaults that cannot move it PREFECT OF THE GUARD (apart). By the gods, Had he held victory he had been great ! His face is like a lightning-lighted desert ; And on his furrowed forehead sits the will Inflexible as on its shivered throne. 66 MEMNON. His heart upheaves, convulsed with mighty passion Too vast for utterance ; it will destroy His body ere the hand of vengeance strike. CHIEF HIEROPHANT. The visage of the king is changed, — he rises. Thou hast used well the slave's prerogative. In words of windy strength, and stormy sound ; The majesty of Eg)rpt answers thee With silence. Bear him to his punishment. MEMNON. Thou impotent in foresight ! see'st thou not ? Think' St thou to terrify by such examples ? The frequency of punishment but marks A government's fears. There is no man so base, Whose nature may not be enlarged by mercy. The sentence on the popular mind creates A feeling and a sense of tyranny. At which the heart rebels, and would oppose If armed with power ; they are as scourges felt That hoarding vengeance will repay. AMASIS. Deem'st thou Rebellion e'er shall rally ? MEMNON. 67 MEMNON. Ask the storm Whence grew the blossom, rent and trodden down Even to the mire ; never yet were seen Where ripened the first seeds of liberty. They are, as nature's silent operations, Unseen, inaudible. Who marks the acorn. Cast carelessly on earth by the light wind ; Who blesses not its growth, a rising trunk Of shelter from the whirlwind ? AMASIS. What should fear Amasis, from within his marble halls And brazen gates ? Opinion enters them. The world's sole ruler, that bows not to kings : They are its earliest slaves ; they may defy. But dread and own its power ; it is the award And utterance of justice, gathered not From rules, or saws, but stamped on human hearts. That with each day grows like a mighty tree, Branching forth infinite vitalities. That of itself states constitutes, and guards : That when all other laws are, or extinct. 68 MEMNON. Or weakened, strengthens, and regenerates ; That binds a people to their institutions, Till habit doth become authority, Obedience its own law, whose character, Moved by a straw, or shaken by a breath. But overturned not by a giant's strength, . Is based upran Opinion. AMASIS. Take him hence. Chain him, and triple the guard's strength. Lead him Throughout the city to the pyramids, That all may know Amasis, king of kings. MEMNON. I go to death as sleep, life's passion o'er : Thou liv'st thy moment, then to be forgot, But then my rays of fame shall fall on thee Tracing my name with thine on earth, while men Shall judge between us, as the gods in heaven. Hold. CHIEF HIEROPHANT. The great king is moved, his visage changes. MEMNON. 69 CHIEF PREFECT OF THE GUARD. King — live for ever — shall we slay him 1 AMASIS. No: Within the dungeons let him rest till mom. 70 MEMNON. SCENE VIII. The Pyramids. Groups of slaves of various nations reclining round them, feasting and revelling. EGYPTIAN. O GLORIOUS day ! we have liberty again : Is not this hberty, to sit and feast Here in the^hadow? With no prefects near With threats or lashes to torment us ; no Sheherless beds on marble, withered by The moon at night, and scorched up by the day. Our only resting-place the grave. PHi^f.MAAN. It seems this Memnon was at heart a tyrant. MEMPHIAN. 'Tis manifest we were beguiled by him ; His moderation and his sanctity Were made a cloak to hide his purposes. MEMNON. 71 NUBIAN. He might have made himself the king. EGYPTIAN. Even so. When he discrowned Amasis, he might then Have crowned himself, but feared ; the popular voice Was raised against all kings, and well he knew It had been useless work to stem the tide. MEMPHIAN. There he showed wisdom — EGYPTIAN. Rather say, showed art. He waited his own time. He knew the priests Abhorred him j not a holy man appeared ; No marvel that he failed, unhallowed by The gods or them. . NUBIAN. What was his boasted freedom ? A tribe of Judges were to rule o'er us Like lynxes, prying in all holes and comers. All ears and eyes, teUing the things they saw. Nothing would have escaped them ; revelling. And the free use of our own tongues forbidden. 72 MEMNON. EGYPTIAN. But mark, this was his master-stroke of art ; A bitter for our palates, to prepare Our minds the better for receiving him. He was the lineal heir. MEMPHIAN. But I say ever Let the strong rule ! they are better formed for it He was the son of Mceris, who, with wars. Fights, marches, sieges, and erecting camps And towers of triumph, emptying rivers forth From their own natural beds, and turning cities Within them, gave us little time to think, And less to live ; but he, at last, was quiet. And then, his sons turned out but rotten branches. And were lopped off from the ancestral trunk, Time showed with justice ; one a courtier turned. Flattering and cringing to the King who spared him. Whom he betrayed ; the other became Sage, Hatcher of creeds, and came at last to prove them, Shrewdly and well j that truth I dare aver : We were fooled over to his purposes. And our own ruin, till our eyes were opened By great Amasis, and the Holy Priesthood. MEMNON. 73 They say this man derides the gods of Egypt, Of earth and of the waters, which our sires Have worshipped through all generations. MEMPHIAN. Why Did we not wreak our vengeance — NUBIAN. Rest content. He dies at morn. Osiris speed the day ! His brother's doom is death ; his just desert. MEMPHIAN. Say, where is Seged ? has the veteran met This adverse tide with an unshaken soul ? He loved the twins as if he was their sire ; Or right or wrong, the old Man was sincere, And must take heavily this change of fate. The last time I beheld him, his eyes were Fixed on the rebel, then in all his power. 74 MEMNON. As if they grew there, having lost all sense To nearer objects : on his cheeks were tears Of joy, which we did reverence; they flowed From his remembrances of happier times. EGYPTIAN. Hark ! the king's sentence is proclaiming through The streets of Memphis, whither he is borne ; Let us go hence and witness the procession. Life to Amasis — MEMPHIAN. May he live for ever ! MEMNON. 75 SCENE IX. The Dungeon of the Palace. MEMNON. The last night passes on ; my spirit feels The coming change, advancing shadow-like, That joins me with the world of life unknown. The dead, or spirits mightier than they. And now the strife is past, I contemplate The battle-field, where victory was defeat. Where tyranny crushed down, unconquered rose. I have not lived in vain ; I leave behind The memories that will not pass away. I shall not die, become as one with men ; . I raised them trampled in the dust ; I breathed Into their hearts the life of liberty, Quickening their clay with its ethereal fire. A little span of agony remains, The malice of weak hate to torture him They cannot overcome, whose show of pangs Affect men more than thoughts unborn in them. 76 MEMNON. But they shall hear in me the unburthened soul That must confess itself, although it be Even to the echoless desert. Hark ! a chain Withdraws — has' the day come ? Enter LiLls, with a lamp. Memnon, awake ! MEMNON. Amasis' daughter 1 what hath brought thee here At this dead hour of midnight ? LILIS. Dost thou ask How far the deed will go, bom from the will And heart to execute ? Even I, a woman, One who has shrunk before the gaze of man, Have dared for thee already more than death, The sullying of thy honour or my own. MEMNON. Have I then told thee that I feared to die ? LILIS. Thou hast taught me the undying in thee lives : I would avert the hour. MEMNON. 77 MEMNON. Daughter of Egypt ! If I am he, the patriot, thou hast said, Unmoved by the ambition that allured. While the ancestral crown was in my grasp, That crown by Moeris worn shall I forego The prize in view ? and for a few brief years. Faint atoms in the infinite of time, Blast all that I have done ? Shall tyrants cite My name's example to their slaves, and say, " Behold, the man who lived and talked of freedom, Feared when the moment came to die for her." Alas ! I plead but as a woman here : I would not thou should'st blacken in the sun. Gasping with thirst death only slakes, while hate Holds out the draught that maddens agony. Could I feel thus and slumber ? When mom breaks, And thou art freed, the rumour shall go forth That the high gods have taken thee-from earth. Lilis ! I look beyond the idle creeds Of our priest-ridden race, who are debased Beneath the brutes and monsters they adore. I would not borrow a divinity, 78 MEMNON. Fooling the people with a lie, thus making Heaven pander to my falsehood. Let my fame Grow from my actions. Had I shared with thee Great Mceris' throne, such might have been our life ; I would not change impalement for that crown. I look to it, the test to prove that freedom Has well her martyr chosen ; Nature's self Is to my will subdued, that shall be felt Triumphant most in parting from its dust. The sun of fame shines only on the tomb ; And he who plants the laurel never yet Reposed beneath its shadow ; others reap The harvest, but the sower is forgot. This their reward who labour for mankind ; In persecution, want, or agonies They perish, but their deeds or thoughts survive The kings that rule us from their monuments, And make us what we are. They leave behind Words, that are memories, and oracles, Mandates of fate as heedfuUy obeyed. Then all for which they bled is sanctified, And all they suffered for their brother men Remembered; god-like ip their lives, in death They ranked with the immortal godS. Of these The lowest, I ; no more in breathing life, I shall not see, or hear, the shouting crowds. MEMNON. 79 Nor feel the pangs that throb from baifled hope : All ties are rent between us ; they have proved Their virtue, let them witness mine. Forgive That I confessed to thee a woman's fears, Nor mourned the weakness. We shall meet no more ; Thou join'st thy mighty ancestry ; I dwell On the remembrance thou dost leave behind ; But in the realm of death fojrget not Lilis ! Remember how she reverenced thee on earth. And look thy welcome on me when I join. Beautiful being with thy golden hair, Like sun-rays floating round thy face, thine eyes Reflecting the deep azure, with the tinge Of roses on thy cheeks, such as the sun Ne'er looked upon ; thou, around whose bright form The beauty and the glory of thy youth Hang like a mantle, what shar'st thou with me ? My isolation from humanity Has wrought on thee, a passing impulse, nay, Turn not thus from me ! time shall teach the truths I press on thee in vain. Nought roots itself In the young heart whose being's name is change ; So MEMNON. My shadow for awhile o'ercasts thy breast That shall again reflect the lights of joy. LILIS. Thou wilt judge of me worthier hereafter. MEMNON. Lilis ! chide not this brow's austerity. The shadow cast from it is the repose Caught from the presence of immortal Death ; The feeling of a staid and solemn joy. I stand, even now, the gates of life behind.' Melt not a spirit that needs all its strength, Nor aid thy sire to conquer. Tempt me not To cling to life I should despise, and thee, Lilis ! — even thee, for ,thus debasing me. I am but man, and, gazing on thee, feel How man's strong will melts in the breath of woman ! I would ally the weakness of the man With the staid purpose of the eternal gods. There are, upon whose foreheads destiny Her signet seals ; she places them without The roll of the humanities. She bids them Stifle all passion, yea, without a pang : Shp bares their heads to meet the storms of war, Or persecution ; if they fail, she points MEMNON. 8i Where, o'er the clouds, the undying star of fame Reveals their crown of immortality. When I am gone, think of me as of one Who had been thine, and trod love's flowery paths ; But snatched from them in youth by sterner hands, And reared by Freedom in the desert, grew Like her, inflexible ; and made himself The sacrifice on her deserted altar. LILIS. Thy blessing yet — MEMNON. Be thou for ever blest ! These arms that circle thee, thou drooping flower. Shall cherish thee hereafter. LILIS. Say thou lov'st me ; O, from the hour when thou didsf spare my sire, And raised me kneeling at thy feet, and looked Into mine eyes until I felt I caught Thy own great soul, I knew that we were one. Lilis ! beyond this life we meet again. 82 MEMNON. Who reads not, stamped upon thy ardent brow, Thine immortality ] nor feels its light In those deep eyes revealed as in the stars That rise when day is dead. Forms beautiful Decay, in purer shapes to be renewed. Is less accorded to our human hearts ? Could the eternal gods be thus unjust ? If I craved base life, and thou didst desire, It were too late ; nor fear, nor art, can shun The inevitable, nor, wouldst thou degrade me. ULIS. I shrink from death the unknown evil — MEMNON. Feared, Because unknown ; death is no evil felt. Beyond our apprehension, when he comes We are not, he but triumphs over clay. Its quickening and immortal essence fled. It is the shadow stealing over us Of sunny Life — passed on. We sleep in it, The sleep that none may waken. All is then Unfelt privation ; loss of good unknown, Of ills unproved ; our being is absorbed In an august tranquillity, or communes With the great world that lives beyond the grave. MEMNON. 83 All passions, all that lowers or agitates Our mortal frames, are blights, or chills, or storms. That bow toward, ere levelling us to earth ; The days we measure on the dial-plate Are portions of an ever-dying time ; The air we breathe, in which we live and die. Wastes the vitality it generates, So is our life a living death. Farewell ! MEMNON. My Lilis, be thou blest ! — she hears me not. Hark ! — the guard comes — gain thou the outer gate ; Awaken, love, my own ! LILIS. Farewell — for ever ! 84 MEMNON. SCENE X. The Pyramids — Egypt gathered round them. EGYPTIAN. Ascend this rising slope above the crowds Who must with the procession pass by us. NUBIAN. Look round ; can Memphis hive these mjriads ? MEMPHIAN. They gather from the country, tribes remote ; Thou seest their various habits. There is more Than curiosity hath drawn them here. MEMPHIAN. What meanest thou ? NUBIAN. Behold the hosts of Egypt MEMNON. 85' Marshalled, as if for a world-winning battle. Is this array to guard one Man to death ? MEMPHIAN. Amasis fears — Wiser if unrevealed To multitudes that, in their coming, prove The spirit of great Memnon lives among them. MEMPHIAN. Mark, where the herald passes — Silence all ! If any raise their voices to support, Or to condemn the rebel, they shall be Slain on the spot ; Amasis thus decrees. MEMPHIAN. Thou hear'st the proclamation that forbids The freedom of our tongues ; more liberty Had been more politia Let kings' remember They most resemble gods in showing mercy. He is the people's servant, if gainsaid He hath no calling. 86 MEMNON. AGED MEMPHIAN. What a change has come O'er popular opinion. Two brief days Have scarce departed when we gathered here, Greatest among the nations of the earth, For we were free ; the gods approved the deed, Our hearts confirmed it. Now we throng to see The man who made us free, impaled, and look on His agonies in silence, or applaud them : This mandate to restrain our tongues is wise ; We could not well applaud the king, or Man, That title suits him best, whom we forsook In his downfall ; our tyrants would blush If we upbraided him. Hear then the truth. Not we, ,but Memnon triumphs on this day ; His the great life o'er which Death holds no power ; His deeds recorded by mailed warriors arming For battle ; and his words by sages told To the aspiring youth ; by maidens sung On high and holy days round Freedom's shrines ; By age recounting by the winter's fire The lives of heroes : when Amasis' name. Shadow-like, sinks in that dark stream whereon The dead are borne. We pass from life to death. But Memnon to an immortaUty ! MEMNON. 87 'Tis even so ; hark to the answering thunder Of yonder shouting multitudes ! the herald. And proclamation set at noughts MEMPHIAN. He pa.sses The porch of Mceris, doth Amasis watch ? The king sits with heaped ashes on his head ; The daughter of his line is dead ; thus fortune Comes not, full-handed. Behold Memnon guarded : His brow is sad but fixed, he will depart, As he has lived. MEMPHIAN. They pass the Pyramid. He waves his arm, the guard enclose him round, And stand — NUBIAN, Say, rather, they could not advance, The sun would set ere hewn those masses through. MEMPHIAN. Ho — Seged ! — he hears not ; behold him clad i MEMNON. In anns that have above his hearth stgne hung Full forty summers, why are they resumed ? Mark where he cleaves a passage through the crowd ; Resolve stamped on his brow. NUBIAN. Peace — Memnon speaks. Pause here for moments. PREFECT OF THE GUARD. Thou shalt not address The multitudes. MEMNON. I sought it not ; I read Their natures in their monuments before me. I speak to Egypt and eternity That shall exist together. O farewell) Beautiful and, my own ! and thou, loved Nile, That I have bless'd even as a living thing. O Earth, all venerable mother ! take Into thy womb this body which is thine. If I am formed but of thy elements, My aspirations for undying life Based upon phantasy ; my dust, a portion Of thy all infinite vitalities. MEMNON. 89 May their united atoms form a man Greater, with fates more fortunate than mine. From the dim future prescient death beholds Prophetic hghts. I see the coming hour, When foes shall, imresisted, sweep this land ; Her shrines and idols, broken, she shall be Ravaged by merciless hordes ; driven o'er the earth Captive, a bye-word arid a mockery. The Nile shall roll o'er Memphis, and become Her sepulchre, till none shall know where stood The once immortal City : desert-sands. Ocean-like, closing over her, shall leave No trace where life was ; fane and column sunk, Shapeless, a riddle, and a guess. Her sons Shall become wanderers upon the earth. Outcasts from life, and tribes without a name. Then, when their punishment is full, when bowed Their heads in ashes, dragged to other 'climes, Exiled for life — let them remember me. PREFECT OF THE GUARD. Thou dost forget — MEMNON. One moment more — my heart 90 MEMNON. Will be relieved in breathing its last sigh To mingle with the beautiful, I see Or in the air, the mountain, or the deep ; Or, O thou glorious orb ! that risest now, As if thou knewest him whose spirit poured To thee a love Chaldekn never knew, I would be in thy fiery life absorbed ; One with the glory and the majesty Men idolize, while gazing. Nature's self Shall own me for her son. Hereafter, when Freemen shall raise my statue from the sands. To stand, rock-like, on wastes where Egypt was ; The thrilling airs, and sun-rays, vibrating Through its rent breast, shall sigh forth Memnon's name ! Lives there, of m3rriads watching round me, one Who shall dare seek my brother, bearing him This signet-ring? SEGED {springing forward). King — I will to the death ! PREFECT OF THE GUARD. Ha, rebel, take it ! — MEMNON, Constant to the last. MEMNON. 91 PREFECT OF THE GUARD. Slaves ! wreak the sentence here — even on this spot Where first he broached his treasons. See ye not The surging multitudes are pressing on us ? — The soldiers will be buried, trampled down In one vast slaughter. Strike ! They are on us — Strike ! Let me not, dead, or living, be profaned By their unhallowed hands ! They have betrayed me ; Those shouts I loathe, the slaves who sacrificed The heart' that trusted them. PREFECT OF THE GUARD. Despatch your office, They come — strike ! SOLDIERS (triumphantly). He is dead, we conquered him. PREFECT OF THE GUARD. Fools — look around — he triumphed as he died ! MEMNON. 93 NOTES. Page 6. " Altars of slavery, piled up from earth By men, brute-like, in all save human form." "Mankind," says a celebrated writer, " have justly reckoned these enormous masses of earth and stone among the wonders of the world." The probable opinion respecting the object of these vast edifices is that which combines the double use of the sepulchre and the temple, nothing being more common, in all nations, than to bury distinguished men in places consecrated by rites of divine worship. Pauw considers the great pyramid as the tomb of Osiris ; but the greater number of writers, ancient and modem, believe Cheops to be the founder. Another theory ascribes them to the Shepherd Kings, a. foreign pastoral nation, who oppressed Egypt in the early times of the Pharaohs. But all is conjecture : the utmost uncertainty exists in all that concerns these gigantic and mysterious edifices. Their builders, origin, date, and purposes are wholly lost in the night of ages. * In the time of Cambyses, the knowledge of the characters graved on the pyramids was lost. It cannot be disowned that they were built before any of the temples were raised, whose stupendous ruins are the wonders of the present day. It must be conceded that they were buUt before the great city of Memphis was founded. — Denon. It is calculated that three hundred and sixty thousand people wrought continually in the space of twenty years in building the great pyramid. Page 10. " Did he raise Memphis from the water's bed? " "Menes," according to Herodotus, "was the first king of Egypt. They add, that the same Menes, after he had diverted the course of the water, built the city which to this day is called Memphis, within the ancient bed of the river. On the north and west side he caused a lake to be made, without the walls, from the river, and founded the magni- ficent temple of Vulcan in the same city." Diodorus asserts that Memphis was not built tiU eight generations -after the building of Thebes ; and that the rise of Memphis was the downfall of Thebes. — Savary. * Strabo, Geog. i. 461. 94 MEMNON. Page 22. " Hu lake of never-ebbing waters, where He and his queen sit on their marble thrones." "The king Miris, or Moeris; he built in Memphis the porch, which is on the north side, a work surpassing all others, when he caused the said lake to be made, and left in the midst of it a high place, where he built his sepulchre, and erected these two pyramids, fifty and two fathoms high ; one for himself, and the other for his wife ; and on them caused two statues of stone to be placed, seated on a throne ; thinking by such works to render the memory of his virtuous deeds immortal. " Herodotus adds, ii. 149 — " This wonderful lake is wholly the produce of human industry. In its centre may be seen two pyramids, one of which is two hundred cubits above, and as many beneath the water ; on the summit of each is a colossal statue of marble in a sitting attitude." According to Muillet, there are at the bottom of Lake Moeris many ruins of pillars and obelisks, to be seen still when the overflowing of the Nile cannot sufficiently replenish the lake. In the year 1697, when the surface of the lake was five or six cubits lower than usual, it gave all spectators an opportunity of seeing the ruins of a vast city at the bottom of this immense reservoir. Page 23. " They have two foes to watch. And both inexorable — Man and Nature. " Herodotus adds "that the river ran formerly along the side of the sandy hills of Libya ; but that this old channel was dried up by bending off the river with a rampart. This bending of the Nile, where the river is forced to flow, is repaired every year with ramparts by the Persians ; for if suffered to be broken, Memphis would be in danger of being swallowed by the stream." Page 43. " Trees, towers, and domes, are eyed with their quick life.'''' Pliny speaks of Memphis as >■ wooded country, with such vast trees that three men could not embrace the trunk. "There are about Memphis," says Diodorus, "delightful fields, and lakes filled with aromatic reeds ; and it is in this place that the Egyptians, for the most part, bury their dead. And it is these corpses, which are brought over the lake Acheriiska to the burying-place of the Egyptians, and are there deposited, that gave rise to all those fictions which the Greeks have raised concerning the infernal deities ; hence the deriva- tion, — Acheron. " * * Diodorus Siculus, lib. i. 40. MEMNON. 95 Page so. ' ' Brute strength was felled By the nerved arm of Law." A noble passage from Lysias may be here recalled, as being apposite to the subject. , I have received the following paraphrase from a friend. AijfiOKpaTlav KaTeffT-fiffapTOj 7}yoifieyot t^v irdvTcav ^\€v6epiaj/ &fi6voiav etvaL fieylffTViv . . . i\ev6epais rats T^vx^ts eiroXtTeiovro, f6^:p robs ayoBovs Ti/iSvTCs Kol Toij KUKobs Ko\a(ovTes, iryTl<^'^f'^''Oi 9r)pla)V /iiv %pyov eJvai {nr h.\\^\(jov jSf^ KpanlaBaif avOpdvois Sk itpouiiKeLV ySficp p.ev bpitraixBai Th SiKoioVj \6yC[i Se neiffai) epyep 5g ro^rois virTtpers'iv, Otrb voiio^ pikv jSaffiAeuo- /levovs, iirh \6yov Se SiSa