And The Sakieh Raises Its Wailing, Wayward Voice And
Sings To The Shadoof; And The Shadoof Sings To The Sakieh;
And the
lifted water falls and flows away into the green wilderness of doura
that, like a miniature forest, spreads
On every hand to the low
mountains, which do not perturb the spirit, as do the iron mountains
of Algeria. And always the sun is shining, and the body is drinking in
its warmth, and the soul is drinking in its gold. And always the ears
are full of warm and drowsy and monotonous music. And always the eyes
see the lines of brown bodies, on the brown river-banks above the
brown waters, bending, straightening, bending, straightening, with an
exquisitely precise monotony. And always the /Loulia/ seems to be
drifting, so quietly she slips up, or down, the level waterway.
And one drifts, too; one can but drift, happily, sleepily, forgetting
every care. From Abydos to Denderah one drifts, and from Denderah to
Karnak, to Luxor, to all the marvels on the western shore; and on to
Edfu, to Kom Ombos, to Assuan, and perhaps even into Nubia, to Abu-
Simbel, and to Wadi-Halfa. Life on the Nile is a long dream, golden
and sweet as honey of Hymettus. For I let the "divine serpent," who at
Philae may be seen issuing from her charmed cavern, take me very
quietly to see the abodes of the dead, the halls of the vanished, upon
her green and sterile shores.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 22 of 135
Words from 5688 to 5937
of 36756
