Thou couldst develop, if that withered tongue

Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen,
How the world looked when it was fresh and young,
And the great Deluge still had left it green:
Or was it then so old, that History's pages
Contained no record of its early ages!

Still silent, incommunicative elt!

Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vows;
But pr'ythee tell us something of thyself,--

Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house!

Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered,

What hast thou seen, what strange adventures numbered?

Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We have, above-ground, seen some strange mutations;

The Roman empire has begun and ended,

New worlds have risen, we have lost old nations,
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Apis, Isis,

And shook the Pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,

The nature of thy private life unfold;

A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast,

And tears adown thy dusty cheeks have rolled.

Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face?
What was thy name and station, age and race?

Statue of flesh-Immortal of the dead!

Imperishable type of evanescence!

Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,

And standest undecayed within our presence,

Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgment morning,

When the great Trump shall thrill thee with its warning!

Why should this worthless tegument endure,

If its undying guest be lost for ever?
Oh, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure

In living virtue; that, when both must sever,
Although corruption may out frame consume,
Th' immortal spirit in the skies may bloom!

The Answer of the Egyptian Mummy.

BY MUMMIUS.

Child of the latter days, thy words have broken

A spell that long has bound these lungs of clay,
For since this smoke-dried tongue of mine hath spoken,
Three thousand tedious years have rolled away.
Unswathed at length, I "stand at ease" before ye,-
List, then, oh! list, while I unfold my story.

Thebes was my birth-place, an unrivaled city,
With many gates,-but here I might declare

Some strange plain truths, except that it were pity
To blow a poet's fabric into air;

Oh! I could read you quite a Theban lecture,
And give a deadly finish to conjecture.

But then you would not have me throw discredit

On grave historians-or on him who sung

THE ILIAD-true it is I never read it,

But heard it read when I was very young;
An old blind minstrel, for a triffling profit,
Recited parts-I think the author of it.

All that I know about the town of HOMER

Is, that they scarce would own him in his day-
Were glad, too, when he proudly turned a roamer,
Because by this they saved their parish-pay.

His townsmen would have been ashamed to flout him,
Had they foreseen the fuss since made about him.

One blunder I can fairly set at rest,

He says that men were once more big and bony Than now, which is a bouncer at the best;

I'll just refer you to our friend Belzoni,
Near seven feet high! in sooth, a lofty figure!
Now look at me, and tell me am I bigger?

Not half the size: but then I'm sadly dwindled;
Three thousand years with that embalming glue,
Have made a serious difference, and have swindled
My face of all its beauty-there were few
Egyptian youths more gay,-behold the sequel.
Nay, smile not, you and I may soon be equal!

For this lean hand did one day hurl the lance
With mortal aim-this light fantastic toe
Threaded the mystic mazes of the dance:

This heart hath throbbed at tales of love and woe,
These shreds of raven hair once set the fashion,
This withered form inspired the tender passion.

In vain! the skilful hand and feelings warm,
The foot that figured in the bright quadrille,
The palm of genius and the manly form,

All bowed at once to death's mysterious will,
Who sealed me up where mummies sound are sleeping,
In cere-cloth, and in tolerable keeping.

Where cows and monkeys squat in rich brocade,
And well-dressed crocodiles in painted cases,

Rats, bats, and owls, and cats in masquerade,

With scarlet flounces and with varnished faces; Men, birds, brutes, reptiles, fish-all crammed together. With ladies that might pass for well-tanned leather.

Where Rameses and Sabacon lie down,

And splendid psammis in his hide of crust; Princes and heroes, men of high renown,

Who in their day kicked up a mighty dust,-
Their swarthy Mummies kicked up dust in numbers,
When huge Belloni came to scare their slumbers.

Who'd think these rusty hams of mine were seated
At Dido's table when the wondrous tale

Of "Juno's hatred" was so well repeated?

And ever and anon the Queen turned pale;
Meanwhile the brilliant gas-lights hung above her,
Threw a wild glare upon her shipwrecked lover.

Ay, gas-lights! mock me not; we men of yore
Were versed in all the knowledge you can mention;
Who hath not heard? of Egypt's lore?

Her patient toil? acuteness of invention?
Survey the proofs-our Pyramids are thriving,—
Old Memnon still looks young, and I'm suvrving.

A land in arts and sciences prolific,

On blocks gigantic building up her fame!
Crowded with signs, and letters hieroglyphic,
Temples and obelisks her skill proclaim!
Yet though the art and toil unearthly seem,
Those blocks were brought on RAIL-ROADS and by STEAM!

How, when, and why, our people came to rear
The Pyramid of Cheops, mighty pile!

This and the other secrets thou shalt hear;

I will unfold, it thou wilt stay awhile,

The hist'ry of the Sphinx, and who began it,
Our mystic marks, and monsters made of granite.

Well, then, in grievous times, when King Cephrenes-
But, ah! what's this?-the shades of bards and kings
Press on my lips their fingers! What they mean is,
I am not to reveal these hidden things.
Mortal, farewell! Till Science' self unbind them.
Men must e'en take these secrets as they find them.

Lines to an Alabaster

Sarcophagus.

FOUND IN AN EGYPTIAN TOMB.

BY N. P. S.

The following lines are addressed to an Alabaster Sarcophagus, supposed to be that of a king, called by Belzoni Psammuthis, but whose real name was Ousiree Menepthah :

Thou Alabaster relic! while I hold

My hand upon thy sculptured margin thrown,
Let me recall the scenes thou couldst unfold,

Mightest thou relate the changes thou hast known,
For thou wert primitive in thy formation,
Launched from th' Almighty's hand at the creation.

Yes-thou wert present when the stars and skies
And worlds unnumbered rolled into their places,
When God from chaos bade the spheres arise,

And fixed the radiant sun upon its basis,
And with His finger on the bounds of space,
Marked out each planet's everlasting race.

How many thousand ages from thy birth

Thou slept'st in darkness, it weie vain to ask;
Till Egypt's sons upheaved thee from the earth,
And year by year pursued their patient task,
Till thou wert carved and decorated thus,
Worthy to be a king's sarcophagus.

What time Elijah to the skies ascended,
Or David reigned in holy Palestine,
Some ancient Theban monrach was extended
Beneath the lid of this emblazoned shrine,
And to that subterranean palace borne
Which toiling ages in the rock had worn.

Thebes from her hundred portals filled the plain
To see the car on which thou wert upheld.
What funeral pomps extended in thy train!

What banners waved! what mighty music swelled,
As armies, priests, and crowns bewailed the chorus,
Their Kings, their God, their Serapis, their Orus!

Thus to thy second quarry did they trust
Thee, and the lord of all the nations round;
Grim King of silence! monarch of the dust!
Embalmed, anointed, jewelled, sceptred, crowned,
There did he lie in state; cold, stiff, and stark,
A leathern Pharaoh, grinning in the dark.

Thus ages rolled; but their dissolving breath
Could only blacken that imprisoned thing,
Which wore a ghastly royalty in death,

As if it struggled still to be a king:
And each revolving century, like the last,
Just dropped its dust upon thy lid-and passed.

The Persian conqueror o'er Egypt poured
His devastating host,-a motley crew,-

And steel-clad horsemen,-the barbarian horde,-
Music and men of every sound and hue,-
Priests, archers, eunuchs, concubines, and brutes,-
Gongs, trumpets, cymbals, dulcimers, and lutes.

Then did the fierce Cambyses tear away

The ponderous rock that sealed thy sacred tomb:
Then did the slowly penetrating ray

Redeem thee from long centuries of gloom;
And lowered torches flashed against thy side,
As Asia's king thy blazoned trophies eyed.

Plucked from the grave with sacrilegious taunt,
The features of the royal corpse they scanned:
Dashing the diadem from his temple gaunt,

They tore the sceptre from from his graspless hand;
On those fields where once his will was law

Left him for winds to waste, and beasts to gnaw.

Some pious Thebans, when the storm was past,
Upclosed the sepulchre with cunning skill;
And Nature, aiding their devotion, cast

Over its entrance a concealing rill;

Then thy third darkness came, and thou didst sleep
Twenty-three centuries in silence deep.

But he, from whom nor pyramid nor sphinx
Can hide its secrecies, Belzoni came,

From the tomb's mouth unclosed the granite links,-
Gave thee again to light, and life, and fame,-
And brought thee from the sands and desert forth,
To charm "the pallid children of the North."

Thou art in London, which, when thou wert new,
Was what Thebes is, a wilderness and waste,
Where savage beasts more savage men pursue,
A scene by nature cursed, by man disgraced.
Now 'tis the world's metropolis, the high
Queen of arms, learning, arts, and luxury.

Here, where I hold my hand, 'tis strange to think
What other hands, perchance preceded mine;

Others have also stood beside thy brink

And vainly conned the moralizing line.

Kings, sages, chiefs! that touched this stone, like me,
Where are ye now? Where all must shortly be!

All is mutation; he within this stone

Was once the greatest monarch of the hour:
His bones are dust.-his very name unknown,-
Go learn from him the vanity of power!
Seek not the frame's corruption to control
But build a lasting mansion for thy soul!

The success of the ancient Egyptians in preserving their dead by the operation of embalming was surprisingly great. For a proof of this we have only to turn to the fact of our viewing at the present time the bodies of persons who lived three thousand years since. This ingenious people applied the powers of art to the purposes of their religion, and did all they could to keep the human frame extire after death, fondly thinking that if it proved a fit dwelling, its former inhabitant, the soul, would return at some distant period, and animate it afresh, even upon earth.

ΝΟΤΕ.

There has been so many who wanted the foregoing three poem in compact form we have reprinted them by adding extra pages.

To Trisect a Given Line A B.

Complete the square A B C D Through O draw E F parallel to A B. Draw A Fand B E. Draw KG and L H perpendicular to AB. Then will A K = K L =¡L B. Because BAF <AFE, and <ABO <BO F and <AHB <OHF; therefore, the AABH and A OFH are similar; and therefore AH: HF:: AB: 0 F; but A B=20F, therefore A H=2HF.

=

Because HL is perpendicular to AB it will be parallel to BF; therefore, AL: LB AH: HF; but AH=2HF; therefore,

AL 2LB, or L BA L.

In like manner it may be shown that A K

Therefore AK KL LB. Q. E. D.

=

KB.

Note. If desirable, the parallelogram ABFE may be drawn instead of ABCD, or the center of E F connected with A and B and then proceed as above.

B. A. MITCHELL, JR., Philadelphia, Pa.