Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, -30 B.C. -- Fiction; Egypt -- History -- 332-30 B.C. -- Fiction
“Softly we tread, our measured footsteps falling
Within the Sanctuary Sevenfold;
Soft on the Dead that liveth are we calling:
‘Return, Osiris, from thy Kingdom cold!
Return to them that worship thee of old!’”
Now in a strain more high and glad the singer sang:
“He wakes--from forth the prison
We sing Osiris risen,
We sing the child that Nout conceived and bare.
Thine own love, Isis, waits
The Warden of the Gates,
She breathes the breath of Life on breast and hair,
And in her breast and breath
Behold! he waketh,
Behold! at length he riseth out of rest;
Touched with her holy hands,
The Lord of all the Lands,
He stirs, he rises from her breath, her breast!
But thou, fell Typhon, fly,
The judgment day drawn nigh,
Fleet on thy track as flame speeds Horus from the sky.”
“Softly we tread, our measured footsteps falling
Within the Sanctuary Sevenfold;
Soft on the Dead that liveth are we calling:
‘Return, Osiris, from thy Kingdom cold!
Return to them that worship thee of old!’”
Once more, as we bowed before the Holy, she sang, and sent the full
breath of her glad music ringing up the everlasting walls till the
silence quivered with her round notes of melody, and the hearts of those
who hearkened stirred strangely in the breast. And thus, as we walked,
she sang the song of Osiris risen, the song of Hope, the song of
Victory:
“Sing we the Trinity,
Sing we the Holy Three,
Sing we, and praise we and worship the Throne,
Throne that our Lord hath set--
There peace and truth are met
There in the Halls of the Holy alone!
There in the shadowings
Faint of the folded wings,
There shall we dwell and rejoice in our rest,
We that thy servants are!
Horus drive ill afar!
Far in the folds of the dark of the West!”
Again, as her notes died away, thundered forth the chorus of all the
voices:
“Softly we tread, our measured footsteps falling
Within the Sanctuary Sevenfold;
Soft on the Dead that liveth are we calling:
‘Return, Osiris, from thy Kingdom cold!
Return to them that worship thee of old!’”
The chanting ceased, and as the sun sank the High Priest raised the
statue of the living God and held it before the multitude that was now
gathered in the court of the temple. Then, with a mighty and joyful
shout of:
“_Osiris our hope! Osiris! Osiris!_”
the people tore their black wrappings from their dress, revealing the
white robes they wore beneath, and, as one man, they bowed before the
God, and the feast was ended.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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