“Hail to thee who art Râ when thou risest, and Atum when thou settest! Thou risest, risest and glowest, glowest crowned as king of the gods! Thou art Lord of heaven and earth, creator of stars and men! Thou art the sole god who hath existed from the beginning, who hath made the lands and created men, who hath made the heavens and created the Nile, who hath made the waters and endowed with life all that therein is! Thou who hath built the hills and created men and the beasts of the field!”—_Wendel._ The genius of the poets of the Golden Age may be estimated from the following verses discovered on a monumental tablet among the ruins of Thebes. They are represented as addressed by Amen-Râ (_ah’men rah_), the supreme god of that city, to Thothmes III., under whom (15th century B.C.) Egypt rose to the zenith of her military greatness, and, according to a popular saying of the day, “placed her frontier where it pleased herself.” The hymn is peculiarly beautiful in the original, by reason of the harmonious cadence of its periods, and that parallelism or “balance of clauses and ideas” which is largely characteristic of Oriental poetry.[18] HYMN TO THOTHMES III. “I am come—to give thee power to destroy the princes of Djah:[19] I cast them beneath thy feet that follow with their peoples. Like to the Lord of Light, I make them see thy glory. Thou glowest as my image! I am come—to give thee power to destroy the people of Asia; Captive now thou dost lead the Syrian Bedouin chieftains; Adornèd in thy majesty, I make them see thy glory, Glittering in thine arms and fighting high in thy war-car. I am come—to give thee power to trample on western nations; Cyprus and Phœnicia are lying at thy mercy. Like a bold young bull, I make them see thy glory, Strong with piercing horns, whom none approach. I am come—to give thee power to trample on those in their harbors; Tremble for fear of thee the distant islands of Metjen.[20] Like the dreaded crocodile, I make them see thy glory, Lord of fear in the waters, whom none approach.” It was by Thothmes III. that the obelisk conveyed from Alexandria to the United States and erected in Central Park, New York (1880), was inscribed with hieroglyphics and set up among “the images of On.” Rameses II. subsequently added to the inscription of Thothmes. (_Read Dr. Moldehnke’s “The New York Obelisk.”_) AN EGYPTIAN EPIC.