Seatonian Poems | ||
III.
But not with warrior's pomp and boastThey marshal now, the midnight host:
Far as the plots of verdure smile
Down the green valley of the Nile,
No cot, but on the midnight gale
Pours out its grief, lifts up its wail;
None, where the hot tear is not shed
Upon the loved and first-born dead.
In vain, poor mother, dost thou strive
To keep that little spark alive:
The Lord of Life, the Lord of Death
Claims, for no fault of thine, his breath.
It is that Egypt may be bent
Before the King omnipotent:
It is that Pharaoh's chiefs may own
Jehovah God, and Him alone.
In vain to strive, in vain to flee
Thy king's resistless Foe:
132
‘And Israel shall not go:’
The nation quails before the stroke
The monarch's madness dared provoke.
Seatonian Poems | ||