Moses

Fine! Fine! See, in my brain What madmen have rushed through And like a tornado Torn up the tight roots Of some dead universe: The old clay is broken For a power to soak in and knit It all into tougher tissues To hold life; Pricking my nerves till the brain might crack It boils to my finger-tips, Till my hands ache to grip The hammer—the lone hammer That breaks lives into a road Through which my genius drives. Pharaoh well peruked and oiled, And your admirable pyramids, And your interminable procession Of crowded kings, You are my little fishing rods Wherewith I catch the fish To suit my hungry belly. I am rough now, and new, and will have no tailor. Startlingly, As a mountain-side Wakes aware of its other side When from a cave a leopard comes, On its heels the same red sand, Springing with acquainted air, Sprang an intelligence Coloured as a whim of mine, Showed to my dull outer eyes The living eyes underneath. Did I not shrivel up and take the place of air, Secret as those eyes were, And those strong eyes call up a giant frame? And I am that now.

Pharaoh is sleek and deep; And where his love for me is set—under The deeps, on their floor, or in the shallow ways, Though I have been as a diver—never yet Could I find.... I have a way, a touchstone! A small misdemeanour, touch of rebelliousness; To prick the vein of father, monitor, foe, Will tell which of these his kingship is. If I shut my eyes to the edict, And leave the pincers to rust And the slaves’ teeth as God made them, Then hide from the summoning tribunal, Pharaoh will speak; and I’ll seize that word to act. Should the word be a foe’s I can use it well As a poison to soak into Egypt’s bowels; A wraith from old Nile will cry “For his mercy they break his back” And I shall have a great following for this, The rude, touched heart of the mauled, sweaty horde, Their rough tongues fawn at my hands, their red-streaked eyes Glitter with sacrifice. Well! Pharaoh bids me act.... Hah! I’m all a-bristle.... Lord, his eyes would go wide If he knew the road my rampant dreams would race! I am too much awake now—restless, so restless. Behind white mists invisibly My thoughts stood like a mountain; But Power, watching as a man, Saw no mountain there— Only the mixing mist and sky And the flat earth. What shoulder pushed through those mists Of gay fantastic pastimes And startled hills of sleep?

[He looks in a mirror.]

Oh, apparition of me, Ruddy flesh soon hueless, Fade and show to my eyes The lasting bare body; Soul-sack fall away And show what you hold! Sing! Let me hear you sing.