Description:
Part of portfolio of 26 lithographs and accompanying book by Lawrance Thompson.
Text from accompanying book by Lawrance Thompson, 15: The Sphynx:
It was a black and hooded head; and
hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm,
it seemed the Sphynx's in the desert.
"Speak, thou vast and venerable head,"
muttered Ahab, "...and tell us
the secret thing that is in thee.
Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest...
Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from
their flaming ship;
heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave;
true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them.
Thou saw'st the murdered mate
when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck;
for hours he fell
into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw;
and his murders still sailed on unharmed -
while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship
that would have borne a righteous husband to
outstretched longing arms.
O head! Thou hast seen enough
to split the planets and
make an infidel of Abraham,
and not one syllable is thine!"
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