The Nile

Leigh Hunt

It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands,   
Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream,   
And times and things, as in that vision, seem   
Keeping along it their eternal stands,—   
Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands           
That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme   
Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam,   
The laughing queen that caught the world’s great hands.   
Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,   
As of a world left empty of its throng,           
And the void weighs on us: and then we wake,   
And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along   
’Twixt villages, and think how we shall take   
Our own calm journey on for human sake.   

The River Nile is the life of Egypt. Without its water and its annual flood through thousands of years, there would have been no Egyptian civilzation. Indeed it would have been impossible to live in the waterless desert without the river.


Main Location:

River Nile, Egypt

Water Buffalo in the River Nile