Son of the old Moon-mountains African! <br />Chief of the Pyramid and Crocodile! <br />We call thee fruitful, and that very while <br />A desert fills our seeing's inward span: <br />Nurse of swart nations since the world began, <br />Art thou so fruitful? or dost thou beguile <br />Such men to honour thee, who, worn with toil, <br />Rest for a space 'twixt Cairo and Decan? <br />O may dark fancies err! They surely do; <br />'Tis ignorance that makes a barren waste <br />Of all beyond itself. Thou dost bedew <br />Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste <br />The pleasant sunrise. Green isles hast thou too, <br />And to the sea as happily dost haste.<br /><br />John Keats<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-the-nile/
