The Port Gibson herald, and correspondent. (Port Gibson, Claiborne Co., Miss.) 1848-18??, 1850-09-06
? @ b T B Y

4
sszzaz==unr=zszu-a=mz.z
| THE MUMMIED TULIP-At the time of the
publication of Tupper's Poems in this country,
several years since, we read, with deep inter-
est, the poem under this title The incident
which called forth the lines was in itself, one
calculated to make on impression on the most
careless reader. A bulb remains three thou
sand years protected from decay by the cold
hand of death, and then restored to its mother
| earth, expands into life and beauty. The train
Of thought too is worthy Of the beautiful
theme. The address to the Mummy, by Horace
Smith, published many years ago in the New
| Monthly, though full Of talent, yet CRATES a.
gainst the feeling which the presence of the
| dead always excites. No man jests over a
coffin. In these Lines the beauty of fitness
was wanting Not SO in these lines of Tup-
per. They are solemn yet lofty strain,
spreaking of Death, but breathing of immor-
1 tality He has done justice to the subject
| SO sublime and fearful. They are worthy
| epilogue to the "Urn Burial" They are fit
company for the "Thanatopss" The Lines
| have never passed from our memory; and on
/ the opening of the Mummy in Boston, we tried
| to find the volume which contained them, but
/ there is not copy for sale in town; and, to a
/
of perusing them now.
ON A BULBOUS ROOT,
WHICH BLossoMED, AFTER HAVING LAIN FOR
AGES IN THE HAND OF AN EGYPTIAN MUMMY.
o life, thy name is mystery--that couldst
| Thus energize inert, be, yet not be,
Concentrating thy powers in one small point;
Couldst mail a gem, in seeming weakness
strong,
And arm it as thy champion against Death;
Couldst give weed, dug from ths common
field,
What Egypt hath not, Immortality;
Couldst lull it off to sleep ere Carthage was,
And wake it up when Carthage is no more!
1t may be, suns had stars that walked the hea-
! vens,
Whilst thou vert in thy slunber, gentle flower,
Have sprung from chaos, blazed their age, and
burst:
It may be, that thou seest the world worn out,
And looks on meadows Of paler green,
| Flow'rs of duskier hue, and all creation
Down to degenerate man more and more dead
Than in those golden hours nearest TO Eden,
When mother earth and thou and all were
young.
And he that held thee-this bituminous shape
This fossil shell once tenuated by life,
This chrysalis husk of the poor insect man,
This leathern coat this carcase of soul
| What was thy story, o mine elder brother!
note thee now, swathed like Milanese babe
But thine are tinctured graye-clothes, fathoms
long,
On thy shrunk breast the mystic beetle lies
Commenting thee to Earth, and to tho Sun
| Recommending all; a curious scroll
Full of strange written lore rests at thy side;
With quaint rosary of bestial gods,
Ammon, Bubastes, Thoth, Osiris, Apis,
And Horus with the curl, Typhon and Phthah
Amulets ciphered with forgotten tongues,
! And charm'd religious beads circle thy threat
Greatly thy children honored thee in death,
And for the light vouchsafed them they diC
we'll
In that they hoped, and not unwisely hoped,
| Again in his own flesh to see their sire:
And their affection spared not, so the form
They loved in life might rest adorned in death
]; But this dry hand-was it once terrible
A When among warrior bands thou wentest fort
: With Ramses, or Sesostris, yet again
D To crush the rebel Ethiop?-wast thou set
5 A taskmaster to toiling Israel
!; When Cheops or Cephrenes raised to Heave
Their giant sepulchres!-or did this hand,
That lately held fow'r, with murdorous gras
Tear from the Hebrew mother her poor babe
To lng it to the crocodile?-or rather
: Vert thou some garden-lover, and this bulb
Z Perchance most rare and fine, priced aboy
gold,
: (As in the mad worlds dotage yesterday
2 A tulp-root could fetch princes ransOm)--
Was to be buried with thee, as thy praise,
Thy Rosicrucian lamp, thine idle weed!--
Perchance, O kinder thought and better hope,
: Some priest Of Isis shrined this root with the
i As natures hieroglyphic, her half-guess
OF glimmering faith, that soul will never die:
What emblem iker, or more eloquent
Of Immortality, whether the Sphinx,
Scarab. or cireled snake, or wide-Winged orb,
The azure-colored arch, the sleepless eye,
), The pyramid four-square, or flowing river,
Or all whatever else were symbols apt
4 In Egypt's alphabet-as thou, dry root,
So full of living promise?-yes, see
Natures "resurgam" sculptured there in wore
That all of every cline may run and read:
see the better hope of better times,
10 Hope against hope, wrapped in the dusky Goa
Of poor leek-- note glad tidings there
Of happier things: this undecaying corpse
h A little longer, yet little longer
n Must slumber on, but shall wake at last
e A little longer, yet little longer
And at the trumpet's voice, shall this dry shal
~ Start up, instinct with life, the same thoul
al changed,
in And put on corruption's glorious garb:
m Perchance for second death-perchance
s. shine,
9 If aught of Israers God he knew and lOv'd,
Brighter than seraphs, and beyond the sun.