Could Pentaour, the Copt poet-laureate, scribe, bard and friend of the King,

Sing now, as aforetime to Rameses, how, and of what should he sing?

Of Nile given up to the Giaour, its increase made o'er to the Jew

Modern Pharaoh would gladly let go with his bonds and his power of screw?

Of Ra superseded by Apis, of Rameses bluffed by John Bull,

Of the pride of the pashas o'erthrown, of the cup of the fellaheen full?

Should he sing of the anger of Abbas, the fretful and furious boy,

Who with tantrums, and toys, and intrigues, would the counsels of Cromer destroy?

Nay, for he sang of heroes and men, of the might of victorious gods,

And not of a petulant child with the charge of his champions at odds,

Or of journalists juggling with words, or financiers jobbing with bonds.

Young Abbas fares forth to the Sphinx, to the secular Sphinx, that responds

To none save the fate-ordered questioner. Look at that stony set face,

Which the passing of many an empire, the waning of many a race

Hath seen in its stare o'er the sand-wastes! It Pentaour beheld in its pride;

And now the boy Abbas, in eager-eyed question, creeps close to the side

Of the age-battered Oracle! Hist! All the desert is still as the sky.

Do the voices of forty fled centuries sound on the breeze that breathes by?

Bear they meanings the Frank would acclaim, or the latter-day Hebrew approve?

Those Voices are hard to interpret, that Sphinx is not easy to move.

It would speak with the music of Memnon, in Abbas's ears, did it say

The Frank shall return whence he came, and the Briton betake him away.

Yet Ismail the shrewd, the unscrupulous, knew what young Abbas must learn,

That a Government strong to subsist, which no blast of intrigue can o'erturn,

Is not shapen of shifting Nile sands, broken reeds, which, like Egypt of old,

But pierce through the hand that shall rest on them. Abbas the boy may be bold,

With a thoughtless boy-boldness, but is he the Khedive keen Ismail foresaw,

Of character 'stablished on justice, of force firmly founded on law?

Poor boy, eager-eyed, half exultant, he lifts, half inquiry half plaint,

His Voice of Appeal to the Sphinx. On the air of the desert how faint

Sound his words, "Is it Egypt, O Sphinx, for Egyptians?" There comes no reply,

But straight o'er the sands, as of old, staring forth to the weird desert sky,

Unmoved, unresponsive, indifferent, gazes that stony face still,

Incarnation of calm most colossal, cold patience, immovable will,

Looking far beyond time, far above human hope, mere midge-fret of the day,

Into—what? There's no mortal who knows, and the Sphinx, if it know, doth not say.

'Tis silent—with silence that means not consent to the youth's wild appeal;

Still, still the set face which is stone gazes forth on a sky which is steel!