IN the shade of the pyramids
I knelt and wrote on the sand,
While with softly drooping, veiléd lids,
You watched in the shade of those pyramids
The movements of my hand.
I wrote of the fall of Troy,
I wrote of the Grecian ships,
I wrote of Adonis the lovely boy.
And of winged Psyche's virgin joy
As she clung to Eros' lips.
I wrote of the Syrian pearls.
Of Herod, the Jewish king.
I wrote of Salome's tossing curls
And the pale lips sweeter than any girl's,
Of her blood-stained offering.
But all the while you kept.
Dark-lowered your veiled lids.
You neither laughed nor murmured nor wept;
A watcher would surely have dreamed you slept
In the shade of those pyramids.
But when I wrote in the sand
A little unlegended name,
A human unhistoried name.
With a bitter cry and uplifted hand
You rose and over that famished land,
Fled away like a flame.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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