The Massachusetts spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1821-1823, 1821-10-31
POETRY.
From a late London Magazine.1

Address to the Mummy at Bel=oni's
Exhibition.
AND thou hast wall1'd about Chow strange a
story0
In Thebes' streets three Thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And Time had not begun to ogerthsow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Ofwhich the very ruins arc tremendous.
Speak. for thou long enough hast acted
Dummy.
Thou hast tongue-come, let us hear IFS
tune;
IThou'rt standing on thy legs, above ground,
Mummy!
Re-visiting the glimpses of the moon,
Not ike thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,
But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and
features.
Tell us; for doubtless thou eanst Pecollect,
To whom should we assign The Sphinx's
fame.
Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect
OF either pyramid that bears his names
Is Pompey's Pillar really misnomer'
Had Thebes hundred gates. as sung by
Homer:
Perhaps thou vert a Mason, and forbidden
By oath to tell the mysteries of thy trade
Then say what secret melody was hidden
In Memnon's statue when at sunrise play'd?
Perhaps thou vert Priest-if so, my struggles
Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles.
Perchance that very hand, now pinion'd flat,
Has hob-a-nob'd with Pharaoh, glass to glass,
Or dropp'd Aalfpenny in Homer's hat,
Or doff'd thine own 10 let Queen Dido pass,
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great Temples dedication.
need not ask thee ii that hand, when arm'd,
Has any Roman soldier maul'da and knuckled;
For thou vert dead, and buried, and embalm'd,
Ere Romulns and Remus had been sucked !:
Antiquity appears to have begun
Long after thy primeval race was rum.
Thou couldst develop, if that wither'd tongue
Might tell US what those sightless orbs have
How the world loek'd when it was fresh and
young,
And the great Dcluge still had left it green +;
Or was it then 50 old that History's pages
CONTAINED no record of its early ages.a
Still silent, ineommunicative elfe
Art sworn to secresy? then keep thy vows
But, prythee, tell us something of thyself,
Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house;
Since in the world ofspirits thou hast slumher'd,
What hast thou seen-what strange adFen-
lures number'ds
Since first thy form was in this box extended,
We have, above-ground, seen some strange
mutations
The Roman empire has begun and ended,
New worlds have risen, we have lost old
nations,
And countless kings have into dust been hum
bled,
While not fragment of thy feshhas crumbled.
Didst thou not hear the pother DER thy head,
When the great Persian conqueror,, Cam
byscs,
March'd armies DER thy tomb with laundering
tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, 0rus, Apis, Isis,
And shook the Pyramids with fear and wonder
When the gigantick Memnon fell asunders
If the tomb's secrets may not be conftss'd, !.
The nature of thy private life unfold =
A heart has throbb'd beneath that leathern
breast,
And tears adown that dusty cheek have roll'd:
Have children climb'd those knees, and kiss'd
that face?
What was thy name and station, age and race
Statue of fest ! immortal of the dead!
lmperlshable type OF evanescence;
Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed.
And standest undecay'd within our pre- sence,
Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgment
morning,
When the great trump shall thrill thee with
its warning.
Why should this worthless tegument endure,
Ii its undyiDg guest be lost forever
o, let rs keep the soul embalm'd and pure
In living virtue, that when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
Ih' immortal spirit in the skies may bloom.