They bound him fast beneath the forest green,
And when was come the shadowy edge of night—
Nay—ask not what the horned owl hath seen,
Nor what the moon doth know—white and serene
The soul of Jean de Breboeuf took its flight.
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.