Abu Simbel

His is the shrine of Silence, sunk and hewn   
Deep in the solid rock: its pillars rise   
From floor to roof, like giants, with fixed eyes   
And palms crossed on their breasts; e’en at mid-noon   
A dim light falls around, as though the moon          
Were peering at the temple from the skies.   
The foot falls soundless on the sand, that lies   
A carpet by long centuries thick-strewn.   
The mighty shapes that guard the solemn pile,   
Unburied, after ages, from the tomb           
Heaped on them by the blast of the simoom,   
Sit at the portal, gazing, night and day,   
O’er the lone desert, stretching far away,   
And on the eternal flood of Father Nile.