Ye giant shades of RA and TUM, <br />Ye ghosts of gods Egyptian, <br />If murmurs of our planet come <br />To exiles in the precincts wan <br />Where, fetish or Olympian, <br />To help or harm no more ye list, <br />Look down, if look ye may, and scan <br />This monument in London mist! <br /> <br />Behold, the hieroglyphs are dumb <br />That once were read of him that ran <br />When seistron, cymbal, trump, and drum <br />Wild music of the Bull began; <br />When through the chanting priestly clan <br />Walk'd Ramses, and the high sun kiss'd <br />This stone, with blessing scored and ban - <br />This monument in London mist. <br /> <br />The stone endures though gods be numb; <br />Though human effort, plot, and plan <br />Be sifted, drifted, like the sum <br />Of sands in wastes Arabian. <br />What king may deem him more than man, <br />What priest says Faith can Time resist <br />While THIS endures to mark their span - <br />This monument in London mist? <br /> <br />ENVOY. <br /> <br />Prince, the stone's shade on your divan <br />Falls; it is longer than ye wist: <br />It preaches, as Time's gnomon can, <br />This monument in London mist!<br /><br />Andrew Lang<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ballade-of-cleopatra-s-needle/
