Fantastic sleep is busy with my eyes;
I seem in some waste solitude to stand
Once ruled of Cheops; upon either hand
A dark illimitable desert lies,
Sultry and still -- a zone of mysteries.
A wide-browed Sphinx, half buried in the sand,
With orbless sockets stares across the land,
The woefulest thing beneath these brooding skies
Save that loose heap of bleachèd bones, that lie
Where haply some poor Bedouin crawled to die.
Lo! while I gaze, beyond the vast sand-sea
The nebulous clouds are downward slowly drawn,
And one bleared star, faint glimmering like a bee,
Is shut in the rosy outstretched hand of Dawn.
There are many poems about Egypt, a country which has fascinated writers since the mists of antiquity. There are of course lots of poems about the Sphinx and even more poems about the Great Pyramids of Giza.
The Sphinx of course has now been excavated from the sand.
The Great Sphinx of Giza with the Great Pyramids behind