Who with tantrums, and toys, and intrigues, would the counsels of Cromer destroy?
Nay, for he sang of heroes and men, of the might of victorious gods,
And not of a petulant child with the charge of his champions at odds,
Or of journalists juggling with words, or financiers jobbing with bonds.
Young Abbas fares forth to the Sphinx, to the secular Sphinx, that responds
To none save the fate-ordered questioner. Look at that stony set face,
Which the passing of many an empire, the waning of many a race
Hath seen in its stare o'er the sand-wastes! It Pentaour beheld in its pride;
And now the boy Abbas, in eager-eyed question, creeps close to the side
Of the age-battered Oracle! Hist! All the desert is still as the sky.