Then there are silent voices that summon
one across the river, when the dawn is breaking over the hills of
the Arabian desert, or when the sun is declining toward the Libyan
mountains--voices issuing from lips of stone, from the twilight of
sanctuaries, from the depths of rock-hewn tombs.
The peace of the plain of Thebes in the early morning is very rare and
very exquisite. It is not the peace of the desert, but rather, perhaps,
the peace of the prairie--an atmosphere tender, delicately thrilling,
softly bright, hopeful in its gleaming calm. Often and often have I left
the _Loulia_ very early moored against the long sand islet that faces
Luxor when the Nile has not subsided, I have rowed across the quiet
water that divided me from the western bank, and, with a happy heart, I
have entered into the lovely peace of the great spaces that stretch from
the Colossi of Memnon to the Nile, to the mountains, southward toward
Armant, northward to Kerekten, to Danfik, to Gueziret-Meteira. Think of
the color of young clover, of young barley, of young wheat; think of
the timbre of the reed flute's voice, thin, clear, and frail with the
frailty of dewdrops; think of the torrents of spring rushing through the
veins of a great, wide land, and growing almost still at last on their
journey. Spring, you will say, perhaps, and high Nile not yet subsided!
But Egypt is the favored land of a spring that is already alert at the
end of November, and in December is pushing forth its green.
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