<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="" class="head">The Nile</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">HOW did He fashion it,He who made it--</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">This mysterious dreamy land,</p><p class="line">Here an oasis with palms to shade it,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Here a desert of tawny sand?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">How did He fashion it, how did He make it--</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">This enchanted land of the Nile?</p><p class="line">With a thunder-peal or a sigh did He make it?</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">A lightning flash, or a loving smile?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Æons ago, in dreams He saw it,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Lying in unborn beauty afar;</p><p class="line">Æons long He toiled to draw it,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Out of the core of a burning star.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Terrace by terrace, He built the mountains</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Out of the silt of the ancient sea;</p><p class="line">Cloudlet by cloudlet, He made the fountains</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">To feed the river that was to be.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">He made the Nile; He filled and fraught it</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">With golden loads of a magic mire;</p><p class="line">He moulded the land, he forged and wrought it,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Now by earthquake, and now by fire.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Age by age He brought to prepare it,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">A sculptor's skill, and a painter's art,</p><p class="line">Then, He thought in His love to share it,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And made a burning and beating heart.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">He made thy heart that His heart might fill it</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">With dreams of beauty that He had made;</p><p class="line">He made thy soul that His Art might thrill it</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">With palm, and lotus, and sun, and shade.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And I who watch thee as thou art dreaming</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The dream of the mind that made the whole,</p><p class="line">Discern His love in thy beauty gleaming,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">In thy fair spirit discern His soul,</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And know to what end His Art has striven</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">In the desert below, and the sky above.--</p><p class="line">Know that the beauty of earth is given</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">To the heart of man by the Hand of Love.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Praise, O praise to the Artist Giver,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Who made the earth, and the sky, and the sea,</p><p class="line">And the lovely dream of the flowing river,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And the lovelier living dream of thee.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Here upon earth there is no abiding,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Still like the Nile life floweth on,</p><p class="line">And still our lives are floating, and gliding,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Into the twilight, out of the dawn.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Yet in life can be no forgetting</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Of the desert's peace, of the river's calm,</p><p class="line">Of thy lips and eyes in their lovely setting</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Of maize, and lotus, and corn, and palm.</p></div></body></html> · Great War