IN EGYPT

   It was the Angel Azrael the Lord God sent below
   At midnight, into every house in Egypt, long ago—­
   0 long, and long ago.

All day the wife of Pharaoh had paced the palace hall
  Or the long white pillared court that was open to the sky;
A passion of wild restlessness ensnared her in its thrall
  While she fought a fear within her—­a thing that would not die.

She had sent away her maidens—­their weeping vexed her ears—­
  Their pallid faces filled her with impatient pitying scorn;—­
But she kept one time-worn woman, who long had outgrown fears,
  The old brown nurse who held her son the day that he was born.

The mighty gods had failed her—­the river-gods and the sun,
  And the little gods of brass and stone—­who stared but made no sign,
So she pled with them no longer, her prayers were said and done,
  And now she neither bowed her head, or knelt at any shrine.

Her hair was blown upon the wind like wreathes of golden flame,
  And the sea-blue of her eyes cast blue shadows on her face,
For she was not of Egypt—­but unto the king she came
  A captive—­yet a princess—­from a northern sea-bound place.

She watched the fiery wheel roll down behind the level land,
  One small hand curled above her eyes, and one above her heart,
But when the ruby afterglow crept up and stained the sand
  She turned and gazed toward Goshen, where Israel dwelt apart.

* * * * *

Nine plagues had wasted Egypt with their tortures grim and slow;
  The earth was desolated, and scarred by hail and fire;
Still even yet her Lord refused to let his bondsmen go
  To worship in the wilderness, the God of their desire.

The yellow Nile had turned to blood before her watching eyes—­
  It was branded into memory—­a haunting death-strewn sight;—­
The very dust upon the street the rod had made to rise
  In a living moving horror, of atoms, leprous-white.

The frogs had come as things bewitched; an army without fear
  They had broken through the rushes their upward way to take;
And each one followed steadily a voice no man could hear—­
  While poisoned wind and pestilence came swiftly in their wake.

Then oh, the little flies that swarmed from out the earth and air! 
  And the murrain of the camels, and cattle in the field! 
She prayed the king for love of her to hear the people’s prayer
  And send the slaves far hither;—­but for love he would not yield.

His face was like the carven face upon the basalt door;—­
  Her beauty could not charm him, her voice had lost its power;
So she wrapped a veil about her and entreated him no more
  But sat alone and watched, from out her window in the tower.

She saw the Hebrew leader with uncovered silvery hair
  Come with the priest at daybreak to the outer palace gate,
And the rod of woe and wonder they carried with them there,—­
  Yet Pharaoh bid them enter—­for he dared not bid them wait.