Fantastic sleep is busy with my eyes; <br />I seem in some waste solitude to stand <br />Once ruled of Cheops; upon either hand <br />A dark illimitable desert lies, <br />Sultry and still -- a zone of mysteries. <br />A wide-browed Sphinx, half buried in the sand, <br />With orbless sockets stares across the land, <br />The wofulest thing beneath these brooding skies <br />Save that loose heap of bleachèd bones, that lie <br />Where haply some poor Bedouin crawled to die. <br />Lo! while I gaze, beyond the vast sand-sea <br />The nebulous clouds are downward slowly drawn, <br />And one bleared star, faint glimmering like a bee, <br />Is shut in the rosy outstretched hand of Dawn.<br /><br />Thomas Bailey Aldrich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/egypt-2/
