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Title: Cleopatra's Needle
Author: Hannah S. Battersby [
More Titles by Battersby]
(Erected on the Thames Embankment, 1878).
Thou reverend relic from a far-off clime,
Of ancient days, triumphant over Time.
Thou ocean traveller, brought with peril o'er,
To rise again on London's busy shore.
Superb exponent of Egyptian art,
What wondrous secrets load thy granite heart
Since thou wert fashioned from the ribs of earth
To show the great sun's golden glory forth!
Thou with six noble compeers hast surveyed
The birth and death of empires undismayed.
Some of them saw at On the guiding light
Shed o'er the Holy Family in their flight.
The oldest still ennobles Goshen's brow,
Almost the sole surviving relic now
Of her foundation, and upon whose sod,
When years had rolled their courses, Jesus trod.
And one in Turkey, yet one more in Rome,
Captives and aliens from their childhood's home,
Tower in lone majesty, recording still
The grandest era of Egyptian skill.
A fifth in Alexandria calmly rears
Its stately form, and o'er it kindly peers
A noble landmark, like an angel guide
To wanderers o'er Egypt's sand plains wide.
Ask of the ages where the sixth has gone,
For naught of that stone mountain now is known.
Thus perish all things, save the spirit free,
Inheritor of immortality!
Past ages fondly raised to Ra and Tum
(Whose morn and evening glory robed the sun),
These sacred fanes, to grace the sun shrine high,
Full in the golden splendour of the sky.
Where now is Heliopolis? ah, where
Her sun-shrine, raised in classic beauty rare?
Crumbled, and lost in rainless Egypt's dust,
Save what these columns guard in sacred trust.
And shall we fondly consecrate and raise
Vast monuments to sing of mortal praise,
And then presume to criticise and scorn
Fanes raised the sun-god's temple to adorn?
Ah no, but let us rather consecrate
Anew this worship-sign of ancient date,
Than join in scoff by sneering cynic thrown
On faith and on religion not his own.
Upon the generous donor's aged brow
Let Britain place her graceful chaplet now,
Since unto him is due that she doth hold
This precious relic of the faith of old.
And let us not forget what thanks are due
To skilful Dixon and his gallant crew,
And as is just, be honour also paid.
To useful Dmetri for his timely aid.
Then plant the precious fane on Britain's shore.
In solemn tribute of the faith of yore,
That coming ages may revere the sod
That shrines this tribute to the living God.
[The end]
Hannah S. Battersby's poem: Cleopatra's Needle
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