Like burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed
Gaunt
cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;
Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,
And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.
And, where the
chaliced
poppies flame to red,
In the still chamber of yon
pyramid
Surely some
Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,
Grim
warder of the
pleasaunce of the dead.
Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb
Of earth, great mother of eternal sleep,
But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb
In the blue cavern of an echoing deep,
Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom
Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.
-Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900