The Sphinx (Repplier)
THE SPHINX.
"LE REPOS EN EGYPTE."
All day I watch the stretch of burning sand,
All night I brood beneath the golden stars;
Amid the silence of a desolate land
No touch of bitterness my reverie mars.
Built by the proudest of a kingly line,
Over my head the centuries fly fast:
The secrets of the mighty dead are mine,
I hold the key of a forgotten past.
Yet ever hushed into a rapturous dream
I see again that night—a halo mild
Shone from the liquid moon; beneath her beam
Travelled a tired young Mother and her Child.
Within my arms she slumbered, and alone
I watched the Infant. At my feet her guide
Lay stretched o'er-wearied; on my breast of stone
Rested the Crucified.
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 1950, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 73 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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