Behind me, and near, the hard Libyan mountains gleamed in the
sun. Somewhere a boy was singing; and suddenly his singing died away.
And I thought of the "Lay of the Harper" which is inscribed upon the
tombs of Thebes--those tombs under those gleaming mountains:
"For no one carries away his goods with him;
Yea, no one returns again who has gone thither."
It took the place of the song that had died as I thought of the great
king's glory; that he had been here, and had long since passed away.
"The thinking-place of Rameses the Great!"
"Suttinly."
"You must leave me alone here, Ibrahim."
I watched his gold-colored robe vanish into the gold of the sun
through the copper color of the columns. And I was quite alone in
the "thinking-place" of Rameses. It was a brilliant day, the sky
dark sapphire blue, without even the spectre of a cloud, or any airy,
vaporous veil; the heat already intense in the full sunshine, but
delicious if one slid into a shadow. I slid into a shadow, and sat down
on a warm block of stone. And the silence flowed upon me--the silence of
the Ramesseum.
Was _Horbehutet_, the winged disk, with crowned _uroei_, ever set up
above this temple's principal door to keep it from destruction? I do not
know. But, if he was, he failed perfectly to fulfil his mission. And I
am glad he failed. I am glad of the ruin that is here, glad that walls
have crumbled or been overthrown, that columns have been cast down, and
ceilings torn off from the pillars that supported them, letting in the
sky.
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