The hall was quiet for the priests were done;
The people crouched obeisance,—all save I,
Call'd son of Pharaoh's daughter; for a voice
Spake in mine ear in accents half unknown:
Moses, fare forth upon the winds of thought.
Then I brake forth, until I saw the sky
Above me, where into the firmament
The planets burned, while from the banks of Nile
Rose, to their God, the cry of Israel.
Moses, fare forth upon the winds of thought!
What was the law of Egypt, but to bind
Men to their fellow-men? Yea, all were slaves:
Egypt to Pharaoh, Pharaoh to the priests
Drunk with their own desires,—all slaves to death.
And Israel? To Egypt, and to death.
Moses, the law of Abraham will guide;
There is a law leads not to death but Life;
Man is not bond, but free,—not slave, but king.
Yet, ere another moon had passed, I fled,
Red with the blood of Egypt on my hand.
And now, alone, I tread the desert, slave
To Jethro, and the keeper of his sheep.
Oh, learned one of Egypt, wilt thou die
Here in the desert? Or wilt rather rest,
Embalmed with spices in the sepulcher
Of all the Pharaohs, with my work undone,
My thoughts untraced? For these long forty years
In Midian, my thoughts burnt; and thoughts can
burn,
Aye, burn as fire; yet am I not consumed.
I shall not die till I have seen the law.
And if the law lead but to Life? Why, then
I shall not die; nor die shall Israel.
