The sound of sorrow sent
Far up within the imperishable halls,
Where, each in the other's arms, the Sisters weep,
Isis and Nephthys, o'er His unawaking sleep."
And then again rolled forth the solemn chorus of a thousand voices:
"Softly we tread, our measured footsteps falling
Within the Sanctuary Sevenfold;
Soft on the Dead that liveth are we calling:
'Return, Osiris, from thy Kingdom cold!
Return to them that worship thee of old!'"
It ceased, and sweetly she took up the song:
"O dweller in the West,
Lover and Lordliest,
Thy love, thy Sister Isis, calls thee home!
Come from thy chamber dun
Thou Master of the Sun,
Thy shadowy chamber far below the foam!
With weary wings and spent
Through all the firmament,
Through all the horror-haunted ways of Hell,
I seek thee near and far,
From star to wandering star,
Free with the dead that in Amenti dwell.
I search the height, the deep, the lands, the skies,
Rise from the dead and live, our Lord Osiris, rise!"
"Softly we tread, our measured footsteps falling
Within the Sanctuary Sevenfold;
Soft on the Dead that liveth are we calling:
'Return, Osiris, from thy Kingdom cold!
Return to them that worship thee of old!'"
Now in a strain more high and glad the singer sang:
"He wakes--from forth the prison
We sing Osiris risen,
We sing the child that Nout conceived and bare.
Thine own love, Isis, waits
The Warden of the Gates,
She breathes the breath of Life on breast and hair,
And in her breast and breath
Behold! he waketh,
Behold! at length he riseth out of rest;
Touched with her holy hands,
The Lord of all the Lands,
He stirs, he rises from her breath, her breast!
But thou, fell Typhon, fly,
The judgment day drawn nigh,
Fleet on thy track as flame speeds Horus from the sky."
"Softly we tread, our measured footsteps falling
Within the Sanctuary Sevenfold;
Soft on the Dead that liveth are we calling:
'Return, Osiris, from thy Kingdom cold!
Return to them that worship thee of old!'"
Once more, as we bowed before the Holy, she sang, and sent the full
breath of her glad music ringing up the everlasting walls till the
silence quivered with her round notes of melody, and the hearts of those
who hearkened stirred strangely in
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