crafty and weak,
Have laid tasks on their shoulders too heavy to bear, till the
voice of their burden must speak.
In vain the gray Prophet lifts up to his god his winglet of
prayer for peace;
The tempest of war has broke over the plain, and his altars can
bring no surcease.

The black and the bronze, the iron and brass; how they struggle
and grip for the field!
The spear and the arrow, the halbert and lance, and who shall be
first to yield?
Not the iron; it is strong and resistless in weight. Not the brass;
it is beaten and firm.
What a hecate of agony burdens the plain! what a banquet for vulture
and worm!
But the iron is too heavy, the brass is too thin, and under the
weight it gives way,
As a wall, that is breached and toppled by time; and Mizraim gains
the day.

Oppression, when reversed, is double weight;
The Slave pours lead into the lash he bore;
And, as the Master adds recruited hate
To blows, that he has learned to feel before,
The soul its letters of forgiveness learns
From only one great Master, in all time;
Revenge is human, and forever burns
Upon the trackway of retreating crime.
The text and testwork of their lives was lost;
And when the King was slain, and they o'erthrown,
His people paid their tyranny with cost.

Only the Prophet, with his magic stone,
Could purchase their withdrawal; they must leave
(They were the early jewels of the sun)
And Uri pledged their fortunes to retrieve,
If they would journey, where the day begun,
And seek the closer presence of their god,
In paths where human feet had never trod.
They must divide with Egypt; but go out
Well laden for the journey; should they dare
To turn, the heavy hand of Mizraim would not spare.

AEgyptus! thou above thy gates hath writ
So many times the monosylbic "when."
We, weary of conjecture; round us flit
The phantoms of the past; and we again
Pass in review thy pages, black with mold;
Intemporate within a crumbling earth,
Against the char of empires thou dost hold
The charms that emulate immortal birth.
We write mutation on the brow of Time;
Thou art the changeless one of all the world--
Thou hast no brotherhood in any clime;
All mortal barbets have in vain been hurled.

"Time conquers all things?" Thou giv'st back the lie;
Above its ru