Page:Poems by Isaac Rosenberg (1922).djvu/86

 They'd make a bonfire of themselves to be Mouthed in the squares, broad in the public eye: And whose backs break, whose lives are mauled, after It all falls flat? His tender airs chill me— As thoughts of sleep to a man tiptoed night-long Roped round his neck, for sleep means death to him. Oh, he is kind to us! Your safe teeth chatter when they hear a step: He left them yours because his cunning way Would brag the wrong against his humane act By Pharaoh; so gain more favour than he lost.

Help him not then, and push your safety away: I for my part will be his backward eye, His hands when they are shut. Ah! Abinoah! Like a bad smell from the soul of Moses dipt In the mire of lust he hangs round him; And if his slit-like eyes could tear right out The pleasure Moses on his daughter had, She'd be as virgin as ere she came nestling Into that fierce unmanageable blood, Flying from her loathed father. O, that slave Has hammered from the anvil of her beauty