To the Nile

Son of the old moon-mountains African!
  Chief of the Pyramid and Crocodile!
  We call thee fruitful, and that very while
A desert fills our seeing’s inward span;
Nurse of swart nations since the world began,
  Art thou so fruitful? or dost thou beguile
  Such men to honour thee, who, worn with toil,
Rest for a space ’twixt Cairo and Decan?
O may dark fancies err! They surely do;
  ’Tis ignorance that makes a barren waste
Of all beyond itself. Thou dost bedew
  Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste
The pleasant sun-rise. Green isles hast thou too,
  And to the sea as happily dost haste.