And if his life _must_ wane away
Like other lives at least the day,
The hour it lasts shall like a fire
With incense fed in sweets expire.
LETTER II.
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
_Memphis_.
'Tis true, alas--the mysteries and the lore
I came to study on this, wondrous shore.
Are all forgotten in the new delights.
The strange, wild joys that fill my days and nights.
Instead of dark, dull oracles that speak
From subterranean temples, those _I_ seek
Come from the breathing shrines where Beauty lives,
And Love, her priest, the soft responses gives.
Instead of honoring Isis in those rites
At Coptos held, I hail her when she lights
Her first young crescent on the holy stream--
When wandering youths and maidens watch her beam
And number o'er the nights she hath to run,
Ere she again embrace her bridegroom sun.
While o'er some mystic leaf that dimly lends
A clew into past times the student bends,
And by its glimmering guidance learns to tread
Back thro' the shadowy knowledge of the dead--
The only skill, alas, _I_ yet can claim
Lies in deciphering some new loved-one's name--
Some gentle missive hinting time and place,
In language soft as Memphian reed can trace.
And where--oh where's the heart that could withstand
The unnumbered witcheries of this sun-born land,
Where first young Pleasure's banner was unfurled
And Love hath temples ancient as the world!
Where mystery like the veil by Beauty worn
Hides but to win and shades but to adorn;
Where that luxurious melancholy born
Of passion and of genius sheds a gloom
Making joy holy;--where the bower and tomb
Stand side by side and Pleasure learns from Death
The instant value of each moment's breath.
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