Long ago, when the world was young, the Nile loved a maiden. She was Isis, daughter of a hundred stars, who, as she nightly climbed the dark pinnacle of cloud, drew her silver drapery across the stream's dark bosom. Many were the sighs he breathed throughout the long nights, but Isis heard him not; for the wind had told her of Osiris, Osiris the beautiful, the well beloved, who daily waked the dreaming earth with his warm kiss. And afterwards Mira, the great Star-Mother, bending from her gleaming throne, had spoken of Osiris and his glittering steeds, while Isis listening, yearned for him whom she had never seen, whose radiance was brighter even than that of Nefra-the-fire-bearer, who, once in a century, flashed through the still heavens. So Isis heeded not the Nile, moaning at her feet, for her eyes were ever bent on the rim of the world, whence would come in rosy haste the heralds of Osiris.
But one morning, when the starry sisters were fleeing, one by one, to the silent underworld, Isis stayed in the dark cloudland. The night winds called her to hasten, but she heard them not, and stood waiting, while above the eastern horizon rose the Hours, streaking the heavens with their amber veils, and borne along behind them, Osiris himself, more radiant than her dreams. But Osiris, glad in the greetings of the jubilant earth, saw only a star-maiden lingering in her pale robes on the borders of the forbidden Kingdom. Catching up a barbed shaft, he hurled it shrieking through the air, and Isis fell.
The winds fled in horror from the earth; the air shuddered, and shrank away; but the Nile, roaming in agony through the fields, stretched out his mighty arms and, with a great cry, gathered the lifeless star-maiden to his bosom. And there, where Isis fell, rose a starry flower, pale, but with the stain of the dawn in its heart.
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