s, to right of me and to left, and were shut in by massive walls,
strong as the walls of a fortress. And on these columns, and on these
walls, dead painters and gravers had breathed the sweet breath of life.
Here in the sun, for me alone, as it seemed, a population followed their
occupations. Men walked, and kneeled, and stood, some white and clothed,
some nude, some red as the red man's child that leaped beyond the
sea. And here was the lotus-flower held in reverent hands, not the
rose-lotus, but the blossom that typified the rising again of the sun,
and that, worn as an amulet, signified the gift of eternal youth. And
here was hawk-faced Horus, and here a priest offering sacrifice to a
god, belief in whom has long since passed away. A king revealed himself
to me, adoring Ptah, "Father of the beginnings," who established upon
earth, my figures thought, the everlasting justice, and again at the
knees of Amen burning incense in his honor. Isis and Osiris stood
together, and sacrifice was made before their sacred bark. And Seti
worshipped them, and Seshta, goddess of learning, wrote in the book of
eternity the name of the king.

The great bees hummed, moving slowly in the golden air among the mighty
columns, passing slowly among these records of lives long over, but
which seemed still to be. And I looked at the lotus-flowers which the
little grotesque hands were holding, had been holding for how many
years--the flowers that typified the rising again of the sun and the
divine gift of eternal youth. And I thought of the bird and the Sphinx,
the thing that was whimsical wooing the thing that was mighty. And I
gazed at the immense columns and at the light and little figures all
about me. Bird and Sphinx, delicate whimsicality, calm and terrific
power! In Egypt the dead men have combined them, and the combination has
an irresistible fascination, weaves a spell that entrances you in the
sunshine and beneath the blinding blue. At Abydos I knew it. And I loved
the columns that seemed blown out with exuberant strength, and I loved
the delicate white walls that, like the lotus-flower, give to the world
a youth that seems eternal--a youth that is never frivolous, but that is
full of the divine, and yet pathetic, animation of happy life.

The great bees hummed more drowsily. I sat quite still in the sun. And
then presently, moved by some prompting instinct, I turned my head, and,
far off, through the narrow portal of the temple, I sa