To the Nile

Son of the old moon-mountains African!

      Chief of the Pyramid and Crocodile!

      We call thee fruitful, and that very while

A desert fills our seeing's inward span;

Nurse of swart nations since the world began,

      Art thou so fruitful? or dost thou beguile

      Such men to honour thee, who, worn with toil,

Rest for a space 'twixt Cairo and Decan?

O may dark fancies err! They surely do;

      'T is ignorance that makes a barren waste

Of all beyond itself. Thou dost bedew

      Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste

The pleasant sun-rise. Green isles hast thou too,

      And to the sea as happily dost haste.