Lord Ti, you hired diggers and tunnelers and masons
To excavate deep down and build your tomb,
Sculptors to carve its walls
And painters to color the carvings;
Until the story of your life stood out in bold relief
Clear, gay, beautiful-
All your comings and goings before the king
With your vassals and slaves,
Your dancers, your archers, your rowers, your bakers,
butchers, music-makers, metal-workers—
The whole grand story.
And then, when the masterpiece was ready
And you died to complete it-
That last propitiatory finishing touch-
By your order all the beauty was sealed into the everlast ing dark
That none but the gods might see;
And rocks were rolled against the massive door
And sands of the desert were poured over the rocks,
That men should never enter to spy upon you,
And even the jackals should burrow in vain.
Now satirical time has outwitted you
After fifty centuries.
Your gods are dead, or they care not,
And prying men have dug away the sand,
And forced the door,And tunneled light-shafts to the sun
From your secret halls.
And now I cross the desert from the Pyramids in a motor car
To behold your splendor,
And read on these walls your story, henceforth to be
treasured forever.
Did you never once dream that we might find you,
And pause to wonder at your magnificence-
After thousands of years?
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