Going Home

The ancient river glimmer'd in its bed,
High overhead the stars of Egypt burn'd,
When our slow-dying Edith join'd the dead;
She whom the Arab and the Nubian mourn'd:
How in the shadow of old Thebes we wept,
And down the long-drawn Nile from day to day!
Her sweet face gone — her bright hair hid away —
Save what the ring or gleaming locket kept;
And, when we felt the Midland waters rise
Beneath our keel, and England nearer come —
'Mid our forecasting questions and replies,
Back came the sorrow like a sad surprise;
Those dear white cliffs would never greet her eyes,
Nor her cheek flush, to find herself at home.