Beyond the Sphinx, and still beyond, Beyond the tawny desert-tomb Of Time; beyond tradition, loom And lift ghostlike from out the gloom Her thousand cities, battle-torn And gray with story and with time. Her very ruins are sublime, Her thrones with mosses overborne Make velvets for the feet of Time. She points a hand and cries: "Go read The letter'd obelisks that lord Old Rome, and know my name and deed. My archives these, and plunder'd when I had grown weary of all men." We turn to these; we cry: "Abhorr'd Old Sphinx, behold, we cannot read!" And yet my dried-up desert sea Was populous with blowing sail, And set with city, white-wall'd town, All mann'd with armies bright with mail, Ere yet that awful Sphinx sat down To gaze into eternity, Or Egypt knew her natal hour, Or Africa had name or power. XXIII. Away upon the sandy seas, The gleaming, burning, boundless plain. How solemn-like, how still, as when The mighty-minded Genoese Drew three tall ships and led his men From land they might not meet again. The black men rode in front by two, The fair one follow'd close, and kept Her face held down as if she wept; But Morgan kept the rear, and threw His flowing, swaying beard aback Anon along their lonesome track. They rode against the level sun, And spake not he or any one. The weary day fell down to rest, A star upon his mantled breast, Ere scarce the sun fell out of space, And Venus glimmer'd in his place. * * * * * Yea, all the stars shone just as fair, And constellations kept their round, And look'd from out the great profound, And marched, and countermarch'd, and shone Upon that desolation there, Why just the same as if proud man Strode up and down array'd in gold And purple as in days of old, And reckon'd all of his own plan, Or made at least for man alone And man's dominion from a throne. Yet on push'd Morgan silently, And straight as strong ship on a sea; And ever as he rode there lay To right, to left, and in his way, Strange objects looming in the dark, Some like a mast, or ark, or bark. And things half hidden in the sand Lay down before them where they pass'd,-- A broken beam, half-buried mast, A spar or bar, such as might be Blown crosswise, tumbled on the strand Of some sail-crowded stormy sea. XXIV. All night by moon, by morning star, The still, black men still kept their way; All night till morn, till burning day, Hot Vasques follow'd fast and far.