Explore "The Spell of Egypt" by Robert Hichens on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Nevertheless, sometimes one likes to escape from the thing one loves, / and there are hours when the gay voices of Luxor fatigue the ears, when / one desires a great calm. Then there are silent voices that summon / one across the river, when the dawn is breaking over the hills of / the Arabian desert, or when the sun is declining toward the Libyan / mountains -- voices issuing from lips of stone, from the twilight of / sanctuaries, from the depths of rock-hewn tombs.
The peace of the plain of Thebes in the early morning is very rare and / very exquisite. It is not the peace of the desert, but rather, perhaps, / the peace of the prairie -- an atmosphere tender, delicately thrilling, / softly bright, hopeful in its gleaming calm. Often and often have I left / the _Loulia_ very early moored against the long sand islet that faces / Luxor when the Nile has not subsided, I have rowed across the quiet / water that divided me from the western bank, and, with a happy heart, I / have entered into the lovely peace of the great spaces that stretch from / the Colossi of Memnon to the Nile, to the mountains, southward toward / Armant, northward to Kerekten, to Danfik, to Gueziret-Meteira. Think of / the color of young clover, of young barley, of young wheat; think of / the timbre of the reed flute's voice, thin, clear, and frail with the / frailty of dewdrops; think of the torrents of spring rushing through the / veins of a great, wide land, and growing almost still at last on their / journey. Spring, you will say, perhaps, and high Nile not yet subsided! / But Egypt is the favored land of a spring that is already alert at the / end of November, and in December is pushing forth its green. The Nile / has sunk away from the feet of the Colossi that it has bathed through / many days. It has freed the plain to the fellaheen, though still / it keeps my island in its clasp. And Hapi, or Kam-wra, the "Great / Extender," and Ra, have made this wonderful spring to bloom on the dark / earth before the Christian's Christmas.