Near the great pyramid, unshadowed, white,
With apex piercing the white noon-day blaze,
Swathed in white robes beneath the blinding rays,
Lie sleeping Bedouins drenched in white-hot light.
About them, searing to the tingling sight,
Swims the white dazzle of the desert ways
Where the sense shudders, witless and adaze,
In a white void with neither depth nor height.

Within the black core of the pyramid,
Beneath the weight of sunless centuries,
Lapt in dead night King Cheops lies asleep:
Yet, in the darkness of his chamber hid,
He knows no black oblivion more deep
Than the blind white oblivion of noon skies.