LITMIR.BIZ

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feeling of awe came over me, as I now slowly approached it. There was no motion, no sound of breathing in that form;—not a leaf of the dark chaplet on its brow stirred. By the light of a dying lamp which stood before the figure, I raised, with a hesitating hand, the veil, and saw—what my fancy had already anticipated—that the shape underneath was lifeless, was a skeleton! Startled and shocked, I hurried back with the lute to the boat, and was almost as silent as that shape for the remainder of the voyage.

      This custom among the Egyptians of placing a mummy, or skeleton, at the banquet-table, had been for some time disused, except at particular ceremonies; [pg 31]and, even on such occasions, it had been the practice of the luxurious Alexandrians to disguise this memorial of mortality in the manner just described. But to me, who was wholly unprepared for such a spectacle, it gave a shock from which my imagination did not speedily recover. This silent and ghastly witness of mirth seemed to embody, as it were, the shadow in my own heart. The features of the grave were now stamped on the idea that haunted me, and this picture of what I was to be mingled itself with the sunniest aspect of what I was.

      The memory of the dream now recurred to me more livelily than ever. The bright assuring smile of that venerable Spirit, and his words, “Go to the shores of the dark Nile, and thou wilt find the eternal life thou seekest,” were for ever before my mind. But as yet, alas, I had done nothing towards realising this splendid promise. Alexandria was not Egypt;—the very soil on which it stood was not in existence, [pg 32]when Thebes and Memphis already counted ages of glory.

      “It is beneath the Pyramids of Memphis,” I exclaimed, “or in the mystic Halls of the Labyrinth, that I must seek those holy arcana of science, of which the antediluvian world has made Egypt its heir, and among which—blest thought!—the key to eternal life may lie.”

      Having formed my determination, I took leave of my many Alexandrian friends, and departed for Memphis.

      [pg 33]

CHAP. IV.

       Table of Contents

      Egypt was the country, of all others, from that mixture of the melancholy and the voluptuous, which marked the character of her people, her religion, and her scenery, to affect deeply a temperament and fancy like mine, and keep tremblingly alive the sensibilities of both. Wherever I turned, I saw the desert and the garden, mingling their bloom and desolation together. I saw the love-bower and the tomb standing side by side, and pleasure and death keeping hourly watch upon each other. In the very luxury of the climate there was the same saddening influence. The monotonous splendour of the days, the solemn radiance of the nights—all tended to cherish that ardent melancholy, the offspring of passion and of thought, which had so long been the inmate of my soul.

      [pg 34]

      When I sailed from Alexandria, the inundation of the Nile was at its full. The whole valley of Egypt lay covered by its flood; and, as I saw around me, in the light of the setting sun, shrines, palaces, and monuments, encircled by the waters, I could almost fancy that I beheld the sinking island of Atalantis, on the last evening its temples were visible above the wave. Such varieties, too, of animation as presented themselves on every side!—

      While, far as sight can reach, beneath as clear

      And blue a heaven as ever bless’d this sphere,

      Gardens, and pillar’d streets, and porphyry domes,

      And high-built temples, fit to be the homes

      Of mighty gods, and pyramids, whose hour

      Outlasts all time, above the waters tower!

      Then, too, the scenes of pomp and joy, that make

      One theatre of this vast, peopled lake,

      Where all that Love, Religion, Commerce gives

      Of life and motion, ever moves and lives.

      Here, up the steps of temples, from the wave

      Ascending, in procession slow and grave,

      Priests, in white garments, go, with sacred wands

      And silver cymbals gleaming in their hands:

      [pg 35]

      While, there, rich barks—fresh from those sunny tracts

      Far off, beyond the sounding cataracts—

      Glide with their precious lading to the sea,

      Plumes of bright birds, rhinoceros’ ivory,

      Gems from the isle of Meröe, and those grains

      Of gold, wash’d down by Abyssinian rains.

      Here, where the waters wind into a bay

      Shadowy and cool, some pilgrims, on their way

      To Saïs or Bubastus, among beds

      Of lotus-flowers, that close above their heads,

      Push their light barks, and hid, as in a bower,

      Sing, talk, or sleep away the sultry hour;

      While haply, not far off, beneath a bank

      Of blossoming acacias, many a prank

      Is play’d in the cool current by a train

      Of laughing nymphs, lovely as she, whose chain

      Around two conquerors of the world was cast,

      But, for a third too feeble, broke at last!

      Enchanted with the whole scene, I lingered on my voyage, visiting all those luxurious and venerable places, whose names have been consecrated by the wonder of ages. At Saïs I was present during her Festival of Lamps, and read, by the blaze of innumerable lights, those sublime words [pg 36]on the temple of Neitha: “I am all that has been, that is, and that will be, and no man hath ever lifted my veil.” I wandered among the prostrate obelisks of Heliopolis, and saw, not without a sigh, the sun smiling over her ruins, as if in mockery of the mass of perishable grandeur, that had once called itself, in its pride, “The City of the Sun.” But to the Isle of the Golden Venus was my fondest pilgrimage;—and as I explored its shades, where bowers are the only temples, I felt how far more fit to form the shrine of a Deity are the ever-living stems of the garden and the grove, than the most precious columns that the inanimate quarry can supply.

      Every where new pleasures, new interests awaited me; and though Melancholy, as usual, stood always near, her shadow fell but half-way over my vagrant path, and left the rest more welcomely brilliant from the contrast. To relate my various adventures, during this short voyage, would only detain me from events, far, far more [pg 37]worthy of record. Amidst such endless variety of attractions, the great object of my journey was forgotten;—the mysteries of this land of the sun were, to me, as much mysteries as ever, and I had as yet been initiated in nothing but its pleasures.

      It was not till that evening, when I first stood before the Pyramids of Memphis, and saw them towering aloft, like the watch-towers of Time, from whose summit, when he expires, he will look his last,—it was not till this moment that the great secret, of which I had dreamed, again rose, in all its inscrutable darkness, upon my thoughts. There was a solemnity in the sunshine that rested upon those monuments—a stillness, as of reverence, in the air around them, that stole, like the music of past times, into my heart. I thought what myriads of the wise, the beautiful, and the brave, had sunk into dust since earth first beheld those wonders; and, in the sadness of my soul, I exclaimed,—“Must man alone, then, perish? must [pg 38]minds and hearts be annihilated, while pyramids endure? Death, Death, even on these everlasting tablets,—the only approach to immortality that kings themselves could purchase,—thou hast written our doom, saying, awfully and intelligibly, ‘There is, for man, no eternal mansion, but the tomb!’ ”

      My heart sunk at the thought; and, for the moment, I yielded to that desolate feeling,

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