It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands, <br />Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream, <br />And times and things, as in that vision, seem <br />Keeping along it their eternal stands,-- <br />Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands <br />That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme <br />Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam, <br />The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands. <br />Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong, <br />As of a world left empty of its throng, <br />And the void weighs on us; and then we wake, <br />And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along <br />'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take <br />Our own calm journey on for human sake.<br /><br />James Henry Leigh Hunt<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-nile/
