Leigh Hunt read by Classic Poetry Aloud:

http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/

Giving voice to the poetry of the past.

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The Nile

by James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784 – 1859)

It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands,

Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream,

And times and things, as in that vision, seem

Keeping along it their eternal stands,--

Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands

That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme

Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam,

The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.

Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,

As of a world left empty of its throng,

And the void weighs on us; and then we wake,

And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along

Twixt villages, and think how we shall take

Our own calm journey on for human sake.