THE COLLECTED POEMS OF HENRIK IBSEN Translated by John ...

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that four-thousand-year doom-ridden
culture crumbled, disavowed.
It was relics of that blighted
pageant we Khedive-guests sighted
as we neared the Nubian border.
We saw fellahin in order
scud the dunes towards Abydos,
and a little south, beside us,
Karnak showed its groves of socles
like some primal giant’s knuckles;
capitals at Rhamaseum
like a camel mausoleum;
Luxor’s hundred-columned hall
like slaves’ arms in fettered thrall,
witnessed to the storm’s wild passion
in a mute “sic transit” fashion.
That same scene has stayed with me
as I travelled other quarters;
like God’s spirit o’er the waters
made me sense profundity.
Thor in Yule-tide gallop thunders
foremost in the headlong rout;
Grecian gods, though toppled wonders,
to this very day hold out.
Jove lives on the Capitol,
here called “tonans”, there called “stator”.
Where is Egypt’s sacred doll?
Where is Horus, where is Hathor?
No memorial, myth or story,
not one relic to their glory.
Well, the reason’s pretty plain.
Where identity is lacking,
where the form does not contain
hatred, pleasure, joy and tension,
throbbing pulse and blood’s bright stain, —
then the sum of high pretension
is mere skeleton-like clacking.
Doesn’t Juno still ring true,
pale, yet in high dudgeon too,
when she catches hubby petting — ?
Isn’t Mars real, through and through, —
snared beneath the golden netting?
What of Egypt’s gods, though, solemn
lines of ciphers ranged by column?
What on earth was their life-mission?
Just to be, to stay the same,
painted, stiff with inanition,