Temple at Abydos

by Augustus Wight Bomberger

How little hath life changed, O ancient King!
This fan so delicate and bracelet rare,
These dainty, jeweled trinkets for the hair,
Were thine own gifts, I know, and thine this ring.
And Bener-Ab, thy daughter, “Sweet of Heart,”
Who wore them once, was precious of a truth
And dear to thee in all her winsome youth,
Unspotted from the world, unspoiled of art:
So dear that thou at times didst reckon less
Thy royal sceptre than her soft caress;
Yet for that cause wert all the more a king,
Five thousand years ago when thou didst reign
In great Abydos — city of the plain.
And now — ah me, how close these symbols bring
Thy soul to mine across the vast of years –

These toys her marble sepulchre doth keep
To tell of thy devotion, though she sleep.
And quicken even me to just such tears
Of voiceless sorrow thou thyself didst shed
That distant day thou laid’st her with the dead:
Until, a brother, at thy side I stand
Who find the centuries naught and love the same
And mourn with thee thy child of gentle name,
And, mourning, feel the pressure of thy hand!

[Reprinted from Harper’s Monthly Magazine, October, 1903, p. 801.]