her buildings?
Of thy tomb alone thou art sure.
On the earth thou hast nought beside,
Nought of thee else is remaining;
And when thou wentest below,
Thy last sip of life thou wert draining.
Even they who have millions to spend,
Find that life comes at last to an end.

Let all, then, think of the day
Of departure without returning--
'Twill then be well to have lived,
All sin and injustice spurning.
For he who has loved the right,
In the hour that none can flee,
Enters upon the delight
Of a glad eternity.
Give freely from out thy store,
And thou shalt be blest evermore.

On the other hand, there is evidence of a lightsome, joyous, and even
frolic spirit as pervading numbers, especially among the lower classes
of the Egyptians. "Traverse Egypt," says a writer who knows more of the
ancient country than almost any other living person, "examine the scenes
sculptured or painted on the walls of the chapels attached to tombs,
consult the inscriptions graven on the rocks or traced with ink on the
papyrus rolls, and you will be compelled to modify your mistaken notion
of the Egyptians being a nation of philosophers. I defy you to find
anything more gay, more amusing, more freshly simple, than this
good-natured Egyptian people, which was fond of life and felt a profound
pleasure in its existence. Far from desiring death, they addressed
prayers to the gods to preserve them in life, and to give them a happy
old age--an old age that should reach, if possible, to the 'perfect term
of no years.' They gave themselves up to pleasures of every kind; they
sang, they drank, they danced, they delighted in making excursions into
the country, where hunting and fishing were occupations reserved
especially for the nobility. In conformity with this inclination towards
pleasure, sportive proposals, a pleasantry that was perhaps over-free,
witticisms, raillery, and a mocking spirit, were in vogue among the
people, and fun was allowed entrance even into the tombs. In the large
schools the masters had a difficulty in training the young and keeping
down their passion for amusements. When oral exhortation failed of
success, the cane was used pretty smartly in its place; for the wise men
of the land had a saying that 'a boy's ears grow on his back.'"[5]

Herodotus tells us how gaily the Egyptians kept their festivals,
thousands of the common people--men, women, and