"Silence! Who spoke?" "The voice of one disclosing A truth untimely." "With what right to speak?
Holds he the Queen"s commission?" "No, G.o.d"s only."
A hundred hands shall smite him on the cheek.
The "truth" of Statesmen is the thing they publish, Their "falsehood" the thing done they do not say, Their "honour" what they win from the world"s trouble, Their "shame" the "ay" which reasons with their "nay."
Alas for Liberty, alas for Egypt!
What chance was yours in this ign.o.ble strife?
Scorned and betrayed, dishonoured and rejected, What was there left you but to fight for life?
The men of honour sold you to dishonour.
The men of truth betrayed you with a kiss.
Your strategy of love too soon outplotted, What was there left you of your dreams but this?
You thought to win a world by your fair dealing, To conquer freedom with no drop of blood.
This was your crime. The world knows no such reasoning.
It neither bore with you nor understood.
Your Pharaoh with his chariots and his dancers, Him they could understand as of their kin.
He spoke in their own tongue and as their servant, And owned no virtue they could call a sin.
They took him for his pleasure and their purpose.
They fashioned him as clay to their own pride.
His name they made a cudgel to your hurting, His treachery a spear-point to your side.
They knew him, and they scorned him and upheld him.
They strengthened him with honours and with ships.
They used him as a shadow for seditions.
They stabbed you with the lying of his lips.
Sad Egypt! Since that night of misadventure Which slew your first-born for your Pharaoh"s crime, No plague like this has G.o.d decreed against you, No punishment of all foredoomed in Time.
V
I have a thing to say. Oh how to say it!
One summer morning, at the hour of prayer, And in the face of Man and Man"s high Maker, The thunder of their cannon rent the air.
The flames of death were on you and destruction.
A hail of iron on your heads they poured.
You fought, you fell, you died until the sunset; And then you fled forsaken of the Lord.
I care not if you fled. What men call courage Is the least n.o.ble thing of which they boast.
Their victors always are great men of valour.
Find me the valour of the beaten host!
It may be you were cowards. Let them prove it,-- What matter? Were you women in the fight, Your courage were the greater that a moment You steeled your weakness in the cause of right.
Oh I would rather fly with the first craven Who flung his arms away in your good cause, Than head the hottest charge by England vaunted In all the record of her unjust wars.
Poor sheep! they scattered you. Poor slaves! they bowed you.
You prayed for your dear lives with your mute hands.
They answered you with laughter and with shouting, And slew you in your thousands on the sands.
They led you with arms bound to your betrayer-- His slaves, they said, recaptured for his will.
They bade him to take heart and fill his vengeance.
They gave him his lost sword that he might kill.
They filled for him his dungeons with your children.
They chartered him new gaolers from strange sh.o.r.es.
The Arnaout and the Cherkess for his minions, Their soldiers for the sentries at his doors.
He plied you with the whip, the rope, the thumb-screw.
They plied you with the scourging of vain words He sent his slaves, his eunuchs, to insult you.
They sent you laughter on the lips of Lords.
They bound you to the pillar of their firmans.
They placed for sceptre in your hand a pen.
They cast lots for the garments of your treaties, And brought you naked to the gaze of men.
They called on your High Priest for your death mandate.
They framed indictments on you from your laws.
For him men loved they offered a Barabbas.
They washed their hands and found you without cause.
They scoffed at you and pointed in derision, Crowned with their thorns and nailed upon their tree.
And at your head their Pilate wrote the inscription-- "This is the land restored to Liberty."
Oh insolence of strength! Oh boast of wisdom!
Oh poverty in all things truly wise!
Thinkest thou, England, G.o.d can be outwitted For ever thus by him who sells and buys?
Thou sellest the sad nations to their ruin.
What hast thou bought? The child within the womb, The son of him thou slayest to thy hurting, Shall answer thee "an Empire for thy tomb."
Thou hast joined house to house for thy perdition.
Thou hast done evil in the name of right.
Thou hast made bitter sweet and the sweet bitter, And called light darkness and the darkness light.
Thou art become a bye-word for dissembling, A beacon to thy neighbours for all fraud.
Thy deeds of violence men count and reckon.
Who takes the sword shall perish by the sword.
Thou hast deserved men"s hatred. They shall hate thee.
Thou hast deserved men"s fear. Their fear shall kill.
Thou hast thy foot upon the weak. The weakest With his bruised head shall strike thee on the heel.
Thou wentest to this Egypt for thy pleasure.
Thou shalt remain with her for thy sore pain.
Thou hast possessed her beauty. Thou wouldst leave her.