TO A PAIR OF EGYPTIAN SLIPPERS
Tiny slippers of gold and green,
Tied with a mouldering golden cord!
What pretty feet they must have been
When Cæsar Augustus was Egypt's lord!
Somebody graceful and fair you were!
Not many girls could dance in these!
When did your shoemaker make you, dear,
Such a nice pair of Egyptian "threes?"
Where were you measured? In Saïs, or On,
Memphis, or Thebes, or Pelusium?
Fitting them featly your brown toes upon,
Lacing them deftly with finger and thumb
I seem to see you!—so long ago,
Twenty-one centuries, less or more!
And here are your sandals: yet none of us know
What name, or fortune, or face you bore.
