Egypt was the country, of all others, from that mixture of the melancholy and the voluptuous, which marked the character of her people, her religion, and her scenery, to affect deeply a temperament and fancy like mine, and keep tremblingly alive the sensibilities of both. Wherever I turned, I saw the desert and the garden, mingling their bloom and desolation together. I saw the love‐bower and the tomb standing side by side, and pleasure and death keeping hourly watch upon each other. In the very luxury of the climate there was the same saddening influence. The monotonous splendour of the days, the solemn radiance of the nights—all tended to cherish that ardent melancholy, the offspring of passion and of thought, which had so long been the inmate of my soul. When I sailed from Alexandria, the inundation of the Nile was at its full. The whole valley of Egypt lay covered by its flood; and, as I saw around me, in the light of the setting sun, shrines, palaces, and monuments, encircled by the waters, I could almost fancy that I beheld the sinking island of Atalantis, on the last evening its temples were visible above the wave. Such varieties, too, of animation as presented themselves on every side!— While, far as sight can reach, beneath as clear And blue a heaven as ever bless’d this sphere, Gardens, and pillar’d streets, and porphyry domes, And high‐built temples, fit to be the homes Of mighty gods, and pyramids, whose hour Outlasts all time, above the waters tower! Then, too, the scenes of pomp and joy, that make One theatre of this vast, peopled lake, Where all that Love, Religion, Commerce gives Of life and motion, ever moves and lives. Here, up the steps of temples, from the wave Ascending, in procession slow and grave, Priests, in white garments, go, with sacred wands And silver cymbals gleaming in their hands: While, there, rich barks—fresh from those sunny tracts Far off, beyond the sounding cataracts— Glide with their precious lading to the sea, Plumes of bright birds, rhinoceros’ ivory, Gems from the isle of Meröe, and those grains Of gold, wash’d down by Abyssinian rains. Here, where the waters wind into a bay Shadowy and cool, some pilgrims, on their way To Saïs or Bubastus, among beds Of lotus‐flowers, that close above their heads, Push their light barks, and hid, as in a bower, Sing, talk, or sleep away the sultry hour; While haply, not far off, beneath a bank Of blossoming acacias, many a prank Is play’d in the cool current by a train Of laughing nymphs, lovely as she, whose chain Around two conquerors of the world was cast, But, for a third too feeble, broke at last!