Sonnet: Sesostris Poem by Lloyd Mifflin

SOLE Lord of Lords and very King of Kings,
He sits within the desert, carved in stone;
Inscrutable, colossal, and alone,
And ancienter than memory of things.
Graved on his front the sacred beetle clings;
Disdain sits on his lips; and in a frown
Scorn lives upon his forehead for a crown.
The affrighted ostrich dare not dust her wings
Anear this Presence. The long caravan’s
Dazed camels stop, and mute the Bedouins stare.
This symbol of past power more than man’s
Presages doom. Kings look—and Kings despair:
Their sceptres tremble in their jewelled hands,
And dark thrones totter in the baleful air!