Hermes Trismegistus
The speaker contrasts Egypt's enduring monuments with its vanished rulers and Hermes's lost writings, questioning whether one person or many bore his name. Imagining him beside the Nile and in Thebes, the speaker considers the boundary between human and divine, then reflects on his surviving name and fleeting imagined presence.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Poetry, Philosophical Poetry · 721 words
First lines
As Seleucus narrates, Hermes describes the principles that rank as wholes in two myriads of books; or, as we are informed by Manetho, he perfectly unfolded these principles in three myriads six thousand five hundred and twenty-five volumes... Our ancestors dedicated the inventions of their wisdom to this deity, inscribing all their own writings with the name of Hermes. -- IAMBLICUS.
Still through Egypt's desert places / Flows the lordly Nile, / From its banks the great stone faces / Gaze with patient smile. / Still the pyramids imperious / Pierce the cloudless skies, / And the Sphinx stares with mysterious, / Solemn, stony eyes.
Genres
- Poetry — Rhymed stanzas move from descriptions of Egyptian monuments to questions about lost writings and an imagined encounter with their attributed author.
- Philosophical Poetry — The speaker questions whether Hermes represents one person or many and whether anyone can determine the boundary between human and divine.
Tags
Egypt · lost writings · mysticism · human and divine · posthumous fame
What this Textopian page supports
Hermes Trismegistus is listed on Textopian as a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Poetry, Philosophical Poetry
- Length: 721 words
- Structure: 1 section, 11 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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