THOU sign-post of the Desert! Obelisk, Once fronting in thy monumental pride Egypt's fierce sun, that blazing far and wide, Sheared her of tree and herb, till like a disk Her waste stretched shadowless, and fraught with risk To those who with their beasts of burden hied Across the seas of sand until they spied Thy pillar, and their flagging hearts grew brisk: Now reared beside our Thames so wintry gray, Where blocks of ice drift with the drifting stream, Thou risest o'er the alien prospect! Say, Yon dull, blear, rayless orb whose lurid gleam Tinges the snow-draped ships and writhing steam, Is this the sun which fired thine orient day? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EACH AND [OR, IN] ALL by RALPH WALDO EMERSON ENVOY, TO 'MORE SONGS FROM VAGABONDIA' by RICHARD HOVEY DRAKE'S DRUM by HENRY JOHN NEWBOLT JOHN PELHAM by JAMES RYDER RANDALL OUR BROTHER'S KEEPER by W. H. ANDERSON |