ger came,
It parted round his form like flame.

III.

He stooped not at the footstool stone,
He clasped not sandal, kissed not throne;
Erect he stood amid the ring,
His only words, "Be just, a king!"
On Pharaoh's cheek the blood flushed high,
A fire was in his sullen eye; {163}
Yet on the chief of Israel
No arrow of his thousands fell;
All mute and moveless as the grave
Stood chilled the satrap and the slave.

IV.

"Thou'rt come," at length the monarch spoke;
(Haughty and high the words outbroke;)
"Is Israel weary of its lair,
The forehead peeled, the shoulder bare?
Take back the answer to your band:
Go, reap the wind! go, plow the sand!
Go, vilest of the living vile,
To build the never-ending pile,
Till, darkest of the nameless dead,
The vulture on their flesh is fed!
What better asks the howling slave
Than the base life our bounty gave?"

V.

Shouted in pride the turbaned peers,
Upclashed to heaven the golden spears..
"King! thou and thine are doomed!--Behold!'
The prophet spoke,--the thunder rolled!
Along the pathway of the sun
Sailed vapory mountains, wild and dun.
"Yet there is time," the prophet said:
He raised his staff,--the storm was stayed:
"King! be the word of freedom given:
What art thou, man, to war with Heaven?"

VI.

There came no word.--The thunder broke!--
Like a huge city's final smoke,
Thick, lurid, stifling, mixed with flame,
Through court and hall the vapors came.
Loose as the stubble in the field, {164}
Wide flew the men of spear and shield;
Scattered like foam along the wave,
Flew the proud pageant, prince and slave;
Or in the chains of terror bound,
Lay, corpse-like, on the smouldering ground.
"Speak, king!--the wrath is but begun!--
Still dumb?--then, Heaven, thy will be done!"

VII.

Echoed from earth a hollow roar
Like ocean on the midnight shore!
A sheet of lightning o'er them wheeled,
The solid ground beneath them reeled;
In dust sank roof and battlement;
Like webs the giant walls were rent;
Red, broad, before his startled gaze
The monarch saw his Egypt blaze.
Still swelled the plague,--the flame grew pale,
Burst from the clouds the charge of hail:
With arrowy keenness, iron weight,
Down poured the ministers of fate;
Till man and cattle, crushed, congealed,
Covered with death the boundless field.

VIII.

Still swelled the plagu