Guiding the prows with Sidon's wares.
Wine from Chios, Samian earth
Transformed to gold by potters' cunning hands ;
Awhile it shines, and then the starer again
Heaven's watchers are alone. But now instead
Of monstrous hieroglyph, the preacher calls.
Preacher and bishop, and the cenobite
Hurries half naked by.
TO THE GREAT SPHYNX. 99

Smitmg thee on the face with his strong hand,

Strong to destroy all gods save one,

The Unseen, Unknown, unto whom thou ait

Thyself a miniiliter, although unnamed

In the evangel by whose word he lives,

And by whose light he weaves the Thebaid straws.
Weave on I lean cenobite, take not again

The purple and fine linen, thou hast seen

Bread brought to thee by mvens from heaven's board, —

Souls passing upward upcm angel's wings,-—

And like the red edge of averted thunder.
Roll back the earthly, Typhon fall sheer down.
Heaven's face b visible, and man's heart throbs

Shedding joy-tears into the passion-cup ;

For are not all old things now passed ?

Alas I and he too is now passed, long since

His love-feast cup is dry as Odin's shell,

Yet heaven's face brightens still, and through the sand

Deepening about thy flanks

Cryest thou, O Sphynx, for burial with thy kin.
100 TO THE GREAT SPHTNX.
IV.
Hoyering over phantom-mistB

On the chance stepping-stones of time ;

Descending the uneven stairs of Art,

Into our nature's cavern gloom ;

Breathless ahnost become we,

As if the blood fled from collapsing veins.
