The Spell of Egypt by Robert Hichens — Read

Upon the wall of the great court of Amenhotep III. in the temple of / Luxor there is a delicious dancing procession in honor of Rameses II. It / is very funny and very happy; full of the joy of life -- a sort of radiant / cake-walk of old Egyptian days. How supple are these dancers! They seem / to have no bones. One after another they come in line upon the mighty / wall, and each one bends backward to the knees of the one who follows. / As I stood and looked at them for the first time, almost I heard / the twitter of flutes, the rustic wail of the African hautboy, the / monotonous boom of the derabukkeh, cries of a far-off gaiety such as one / often hears from the Nile by night. But these cries came down the long / avenues of the centuries; this gaiety was distant in the vasty halls / of the long-dead years. Never can I think of Luxor without thinking of / those happy dancers, without thinking of the life that goes in the sun / on dancing feet.

There are a few places in the world that one associates with happiness, / that one remembers always with a smile, a little thrill at the heart / that whispers "There joy is. " Of these few places Luxor is one -- Luxor / the home of sunshine, the suave abode of light, of warmth, of the sweet / days of gold and sheeny, golden sunsets, of silver, shimmering nights / through which the songs of the boatmen of the Nile go floating to the / courts and the tombs of Thebes. The roses bloom in Luxor under the / mighty palms. Always surely beneath the palms there are the roses. And / the lateen-sails come up the Nile, looking like white-winged promises of / future golden days. And at dawn one wakes with hope and hears the songs / of the dawn; and at noon one dreams of the happiness to come; and at / sunset one is swept away on the gold into the heart of the golden world; / and at night one looks at the stars, and each star is a twinkling hope. / Soft are the airs of Luxor; there is no harshness in the wind that stirs / the leaves of the palms. And the land is steeped in light. From Luxor / one goes with regret. One returns to it with joy on dancing feet.