To Cleopatra's Mummy: In the British Museum

BEAUTY deceitful and favor vain !
Can it be for this twisted sack of bones
Legends of passion were writ in pain,
And lustful monarchs forgot their thrones ?
Be these the mangled wages of sin ?
Did the tiger crouch in this shrunken frame ?
Could her silken sails and cohorts win
No haughtier fate for a storied name ?
Do dreams recall her those poisoned slaves,
Whose torment instructed her sultry charms
To walk seductive the way of graves
From Antony’s pillow to Death’s grim arms ?
Stolid she turns but a crumbling ear ;
She who was more than a Pagan’s heaven !
Egypt as Ichabod moulders here, —
“ Number six thousand eight hundred and seven ” !