Page:Poems by Isaac Rosenberg (1922).djvu/84

 Vague rumours of our world, to his mind An unpleasant miasma.

Is not Miriam his sister, Jochabed his mother? In the womb he looked round and saw From furthermost stretches our wrong: From the palaces and schools Our pain has pierced dead generations Back to his blood's thin source. As we lie chained by Egyptian men He lay in nets of their women, And now rejoices he has broken their meshes. O! His desires are fleets of treasure He has squandered, in treacherous seas. Sailing mistrust to find frank ports; He fears our fear and tampers mildly For our assent to let him save us. When he walks amid our toil With some master-mason His tense brows, critical Of the loose enginery, Hint famed devices flat, his rod Scratching new schemes on the sand: But read hard the scrawled lines there— Limned turrets and darkness, chinks of light,