10 Best Famous Pyramids Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Pyramids poems. This is a select list of the best famous Pyramids poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Pyramids poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of pyramids poems.

• All Famous Pyramids Poems

 Today the Masons are auctioning 
their discarded pomp: a trunk of turbans, 
gemmed and ostrich-plumed, and operetta costumes 
labeled inside the collar "Potentate" 
and "Vizier." Here their chairs, blazoned 
with the Masons' sign, huddled 
like convalescents, lean against one another 

on the grass. In a casket are rhinestoned poles 
the hierophants carried in parades; 
here's a splendid golden staff some ranking officer waved, 
topped with a golden pyramid and a tiny, 
inquisitive sphinx. No one's worn this stuff 
for years, and it doesn't seem worth buying; 
where would we put it? Still, 

I want that staff. I used to love 
to go to the library -- the smalltown brick refuge 
of those with nothing to do, really, 
'Carnegie' chiseled on the pediment 
above columns that dwarfed an inconsequential street. 
Embarrassed to carry the same book past 
the water fountain's plaster centaurs 

up to the desk again, I'd take 
The Wonders of the World to the Reading Room 
where Art and Industry met in the mural 
on the dome. The room smelled like two decades 
before I was born, when the name 
carved over the door meant something. 
I never read the second section, 

"Wonders of the Modern World"; 
I loved the promise of my father's blueprints, 
the unfulfilled turquoise schemes, 
but in the real structures 
you could hardly imagine a future. 
I wanted the density of history, 
which I confused with the smell of the book: 

Babylon's ziggurat tropical with ferns, 
engraved watercourses rippling; 
the Colossus of Rhodes balanced 
over the harbormouth on his immense ankles. 
Athena filled one end of the Parthenon, 
in an "artist's reconstruction", 
like an adult in a dollhouse. 

At Halicarnassus, Mausolus remembered himself 
immensely, though in the book 
there wasn't even a sketch, 
only a picture of huge fragments. 
In the pyramid's deep clockworks, 
did the narrow tunnels mount toward 
the eye of God? That was the year 

photos were beamed back from space; 
falling asleep I used to repeat a new word 
to myself, telemetry, liking the way 
it seemed to allude to something storied. 
The earth was whorled marble, 
at that distance. Even the stuck-on porticoes 
and collonades downtown were narrative, 

somehow, but the buildings my father engineered 
were without stories. All I wanted 
was something larger than our ordinary sadness -- 
greater not in scale but in context, 
memorable, true to a proportioned, 
subtle form. Last year I knew a student, 
a half mad boy who finally opened his arms 

with a razor, not because he wanted to die 
but because he wanted to design something grand 
on his own body. Once he said, When a child 
realizes his parents aren't enough,
he turns to architecture. 
I think I know what he meant. 
Imagine the Masons parading, 

one of them, in his splendid get-up, 
striding forward with the golden staff, 
above his head Cheops' beautiful shape -- 
a form we cannot separate 
from the stories about the form, 
even if we hardly know them, 
even if it no longer signifies, if it only shines.

 I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
 flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln 
 went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy 
 bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

 We have all of us read how the Israelites fled 
From Egypt with Pharaoh in eager pursuit of 'em, 
And Pharaoh's fierce troop were all put "in the soup" 
When the waters rolled softly o'er every galoot of 'em. 
The Jews were so glad when old Pharaoh was "had" 
That they sounded their timbrels and capered like mad. 
You see he was hated from Jordan to Cairo -- 
Whence comes the expression "to buck against faro". 
For forty long years, 'midst perils and fears 
In deserts with never a famine to follow by, 
The Israelite horde went roaming abroad 
Like so many sundowners "out on the wallaby". 
When Moses, who led 'em, and taught 'em, and fed 'em, 
Was dying, he murmured, "A rorty old hoss you are: 
I give you command of the whole of the band" -- 
And handed the Government over to Joshua. 

But Moses told 'em before he died, 
"Wherever you are, whatever betide, 
Every year as the time draws near 
By lot or by rote choose you a goat, 
And let the high priest confess on the beast 
The sins of the people the worst and the least, 
Lay your sins on the goat! Sure the plan ought to suit yer. 
Because all your sins are 'his troubles' in future. 
Then lead him away to the wilderness black 
To die with the weight of your sins on his back: 
Of thirst let him perish alone and unshriven, 
For thus shall your sins be absolved and forgiven!" 

'Tis needless to say, though it reeked of barbarity 
This scapegoat arrangement gained great popularity. 
By this means a Jew, whate'er he might do, 
Though he burgled, or murdered, or cheated at loo, 
Or meat on Good Friday (a sin most terrific) ate, 
Could get his discharge, like a bankrupt's certificate; 
Just here let us note -- Did they choose their best goat? 
It's food for conjecture, to judge from the picture 
By Hunt in the Gallery close to our door, a 
Man well might suppose that the scapegoat they chose 
Was a long way from being their choicest Angora. 

In fact I should think he was one of their weediest: 
'Tis a rule that obtains, no matter who reigns, 
When making a sacrifice, offer the seediest; 
Which accounts for a theory known to my hearers 
Who live in the wild by the wattle beguiled, 
That a "stag" makes quite good enough mutton for shearers. 
Be that as it may, as each year passed away, 
a scapegoat was led to the desert and freighted 
With sin (the poor brute must have been overweighted) 
And left there -- to die as his fancy dictated. 

The day it has come, with trumpet and drum. 
With pomp and solemnity fit for the tomb 
They lead the old billy-goat off to his doom: 
On every hand a reverend band, 
Prophets and preachers and elders stand 
And the oldest rabbi, with a tear in his eye, 
Delivers a sermon to all standing by. 
(We haven't his name -- whether Cohen or Harris, he 
No doubt was the "poisonest" kind of Pharisee.) 
The sermon was marked by a deal of humility 
And pointed the fact, with no end of ability. 
That being a Gentile's no mark of gentility, 
And, according to Samuel, would certainly d--n you well. 
Then, shedding his coat, he approaches the goat 
And, while a red fillet he carefully pins on him, 
Confesses the whole of the Israelites' sins on him. 
With this eloquent burst he exhorts the accurst -- 
"Go forth in the desert and perish in woe, 
The sins of the people are whiter than snow!" 
Then signs to his pal "for to let the brute go". 
(That "pal" as I've heard, is an elegant word, 
Derived from the Persian "Palaykhur" or "Pallaghur"), 
As the scapegoat strains and tugs at the reins 
The Rabbi yells rapidly, "Let her go, Gallagher!" 

The animal, freed from all restraint 
Lowered his head, made a kind of feint, 
And charged straight at that elderly saint. 
So fierce his attack and so very severe, it 
Quite floored the Rabbi, who, ere he could fly, 
Was rammed on the -- no, not the back -- but just near it. 
The scapegoat he snorted, and wildly cavorted, 
A light-hearted antelope "out on the ramp", 
Then stopped, looked around, got the "lay of the ground", 
And made a beeline back again to the camp. 
The elderly priest, as he noticed the beast 
So gallantly making his way to the east, 
Says he, "From the tents may I never more roam again 
If that there old billy-goat ain't going home again. 
He's hurrying, too! This never will do. 
Can't somebody stop him? I'm all of a stew. 
After all our confessions, so openly granted, 
He's taking our sins back to where they're not wanted. 
We've come all this distance salvation to win agog, 
If he takes home our sins, it'll burst up the Synagogue!" 

He turned to an Acolyte who was making his bacca light, 
A fleet-footed youth who could run like a crack o' light. 
"Run, Abraham, run! Hunt him over the plain, 
And drive back the brute to the desert again. 
The Sphinx is a-watching, the Pyramids will frown on you, 
From those granite tops forty cent'ries look down on you -- 
Run, Abraham, run! I'll bet half-a-crown on you." 
So Abraham ran, like a man did he go for him, 
But the goat made it clear each time he drew near 
That he had what the racing men call "too much toe" for him. 

The crowd with great eagerness studied the race -- 
"Great Scott! isn't Abraham forcing the pace -- 
And don't the goat spiel? It is hard to keep sight on him, 
The sins of the Israelites ride mighty light on him. 
The scapegoat is leading a furlong or more, 
And Abraham's tiring -- I'll lay six to four! 
He rolls in his stride; he's done, there's no question!" 
But here the old Rabbi brought up a suggestion. 
('Twas strange that in racing he showed so much cunning), 
"It's a hard race," said he, "and I think it would be 
A good thing for someone to take up the running." 
As soon said as done, they started to run -- 
The priests and the deacons, strong runners and weak 'uns 
All reckoned ere long to come up with the brute, 
And so the whole boiling set off in pursuit. 
And then it came out, as the rabble and rout 
Streamed over the desert with many a shout -- 
The Rabbi so elderly, grave, and patrician, 
Had been in his youth a bold metallician, 
And offered, in gasps, as they merrily spieled, 
"Any price Abraham! Evens the field!" 
Alas! the whole clan, they raced and they ran, 
And Abraham proved him an "even time" man, 
But the goat -- now a speck they could scarce keep their eyes on -- 
Stretched out in his stride in a style most surprisin' 
And vanished ere long o'er the distant horizon. 

Away in the camp the bill-sticker's tramp 
Is heard as he wanders with paste, brush, and notices, 
And paling and wall he plasters them all, 
"I wonder how's things gettin' on with the goat," he says, 
The pulls out his bills, "Use Solomon's Pills" 
"Great Stoning of Christians! To all devout Jews! you all 
Must each bring a stone -- Great sport will be shown; 
Enormous Attractions! And prices as usual! 
Roll up to the Hall!! Wives, children and all, 
For naught the most delicate feelings to hurt is meant!!" 
Here his eyes opened wide, for close by his side 
Was the scapegoat: And eating his latest advertisement! 
One shriek from him burst -- "You creature accurst!" 
And he ran from the spot like one fearing the worst. 
His language was chaste, as he fled in his haste, 
But the goat stayed behind him -- and "scoffed up" the paste. 

With downcast head, and sorrowful tread, 
The people came back from the desert in dread. 
"The goat -- was he back there? Had anyone heard of him?" 
In very short order they got plenty word of him. 
In fact as they wandered by street, lane and hall, 
"The trail of the serpent was over them all." 
A poor little child knocked out stiff in the gutter 
Proclaimed that the scapegoat was bred for a "butter". 
The bill-sticker's pail told a sorrowful tale, 
The scapegoat had licked it as dry as a nail; 
He raced through their houses, and frightened their spouses, 
But his latest achievement most anger arouses, 
For while they were searching, and scratching their craniums, 
One little Ben Ourbed, who looked in the flow'r-bed, 
Discovered him eating the Rabbi's geraniums. 


Moral 
The moral is patent to all the beholders -- 
Don't shift your own sins on to other folks' shoulders; 
Be kind to dumb creatures and never abuse them, 
Nor curse them nor kick them, nor spitefully use them: 
Take their lives if needs must -- when it comes to the worst, 
But don't let them perish of hunger or thirst. 
Remember, no matter how far you may roam 
That dogs, goats, and chickens, it's simply the dickens, 
Their talent stupendous for "getting back home". 
Your sins, without doubt, will aye find you out, 
And so will a scapegoat, he's bound to achieve it, 
But, die in the wilderness! Don't you believe it!

I LIKE a church; I like a cowl; 
I love a prophet of the soul; 
And on my heart monastic aisles 
Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles; 
Yet not for all his faith can see 5 
Would I that cowl¨¨d churchman be. 
Why should the vest on him allure  
Which I could not on me endure? 

Not from a vain or shallow thought 
His awful Jove young Phidias brought; 10 
Never from lips of cunning fell 
The thrilling Delphic oracle: 
Out from the heart of nature rolled 
The burdens of the Bible old; 
The litanies of nations came 15 
Like the volcano's tongue of flame  
Up from the burning core below ¡ª 
The canticles of love and woe; 
The hand that rounded Peter's dome  
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome 20 
Wrought in a sad sincerity; 
Himself from God he could not free; 
He builded better than he knew;¡ª 
The conscious stone to beauty grew. 

Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest 25 
Of leaves and feathers from her breast? 
Or how the fish outbuilt her shell  
Painting with morn each annual cell? 
Or how the sacred pine tree adds 
To her old leaves new myriads? 30 
Such and so grew these holy piles  
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles. 
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon  
As the best gem upon her zone; 
And Morning opes with haste her lids 35 
To gaze upon the Pyramids; 
O'er England's abbeys bends the sky  
As on its friends with kindred eye; 
For out of Thought's interior sphere  
These wonders rose to upper air; 40 
And Nature gladly gave them place  
Adopted them into her race  
And granted them an equal date 
With Andes and with Ararat. 

These temples grew as grows the grass; 45 
Art might obey but not surpass. 
The passive Master lent his hand 
To the vast soul that o'er him planned; 
And the same power that reared the shrine  
Bestrode the tribes that knelt within. 50 
Ever the fiery Pentecost 
Girds with one flame the countless host  
Trances the heart through chanting choirs  
And through the priest the mind inspires. 

The word unto the prophet spoken 55 
Was writ on tables yet unbroken; 
The word by seers or sibyls told  
In groves of oak or fanes of gold  
Still floats upon the morning wind  
Still whispers to the willing mind. 60 
One accent of the Holy Ghost 
The heedless world hath never lost. 
I know what say the fathers wise ¡ª 
The Book itself before me lies ¡ª 
Old Chrysostom best Augustine 65 
And he who blent both in his line  
The younger Golden Lips or mines  
Taylor the Shakespeare of divines. 
His words are music in my ear  
I see his cowl¨¨d portrait dear; 70 
And yet for all his faith could see  
I would not this good bishop be. 

 Photograph negative
her black arm: a diving porpoise,
sprawled across the ice-banked pillow.
Head: a sheet of falling water.
Her legs: icicle branches breaking into light.

This woman, 
photographed sleeping.
The man,
making the photograph in the acid pan of his brain.
Sleep stain them both,
as if cloudy semen
rubbed shiningly over the surface
will be used to develop their images.

 on the desert
 the porpoises curl up,
 their skeleton teeth are bared by
 parched lips;
 her sleeping feet
 trod on scarabs,
 holding the names of the dead
 tight in the steady breathing.

 This man and woman have married
 and travel reciting
 chanting
 names of missing objects.

 They enter a pyramid.
 A black butterfly covers the doorway
like a cobweb,
folds around her body,
the snake of its body
closing her lips.
her breasts are stone stairs.
She calls the name, "Isis,"
and waits for the white face to appear.

No one walks in these pyramids at night.
No one walks during
the day.
You walk in that negative time,
the woman's presence filling up the space
as if she were incense; man walks 
down the crevices and
hills of her body.
Sounds of the black marriage
are ritual sounds.
Of the porpoises dying on the desert.
The butterfly curtaining the body,
The snake filling the mouth.
The sounds of all the parts coming together
in this one place,
the desert pyramid,
built with the clean historical
ugliness of men dying at work.

If you imagine, friend, that I do not have those
black serpents in the pit of my body,
that I am not crushed in fragments by the tough 
butterfly wing
broken and crumpled like a black silk stocking,
if you imagine that my body is not
blackened
burned wood,
then you imagine a false woman.

This marriage could not change me.
Could not change my life.
Not is it that different from any other marriage.
They are all filled with desert journeys,
with Isis who hold us in her terror,
with Horus who will not let us see
the parts of his body joined
but must make us witness them in dark corners,
in bloody confusion;
and yet this black marriage,
as you call it,
has its own beauty.
As the black cat with its rich fur
stretched and gliding smoothly down the tree trunks.
Or the shining black obsidian
pulled out of mines and polished to the cat's eye.
Black as the neat seeds of a watermelon,
or a pool of oil, prisming the light.
Do not despair this "black marriage."
You must let the darkness out of your own body; 
acknowledge it
and let it enter your mouth,
taste the historical darkness openly.
Taste your own beautiful death,
see your own photo image,
as x-ray,
Bone bleaching inside the blackening
flesh

 The sun sought thy dim bed and brought forth light, 
The sciences were sucklings at thy breast; 
When all the world was young in pregnant night 
Thy slaves toiled at thy monumental best. 
Thou ancient treasure-land, thou modern prize, 
New peoples marvel at thy pyramids! 
The years roll on, thy sphinx of riddle eyes 
Watches the mad world with immobile lids. 
The Hebrews humbled them at Pharaoh's name. 
Cradle of Power! Yet all things were in vain! 
Honor and Glory, Arrogance and Fame! 
They went. The darkness swallowed thee again. 
Thou art the harlot, now thy time is done, 
Of all the mighty nations of the sun.

 Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn
The language of the trees. That's done indoors,
Out of a book, which now you think of it
Is one of the transformations of a tree.

The words themselves are a delight to learn,
You might be in a foreign land of terms
Like samara, capsule, drupe, legume and pome,
Where bark is papery, plated, warty or smooth.

But best of all are the words that shape the leaves –
Orbicular, cordate, cleft and reniform –
And their venation – palmate and parallel –
And tips – acute, truncate, auriculate.

Sufficiently provided, you may now
Go forth to the forests and the shady streets
To see how the chaos of experience
Answers to catalogue and category.

Confusedly. The leaves of a single tree
May differ among themselves more than they do
From other species, so you have to find,
All blandly says the book, "an average leaf."

Example, the catalpa in the book
Sprays out its leaves in whorls of three
Around the stem; the one in front of you
But rarely does, or somewhat, or almost;

Maybe it's not catalpa? Dreadful doubt.
It may be weeks before you see an elm
Fanlike in form, a spruce that pyramids,
A sweetgum spiring up in steeple shape.

Still, pedetemtim as Lucretious says,
Little by little, you do start to learn;
And learn as well, maybe, what language does
And how it does it, cutting across the world

Not always at the joints, competing with
Experience while cooperating with
Experience, and keeping an obstinate
Intransigence, uncanny, of its own.

Think finally about the secret will
Pretending obedience to Nature, but
Invidiously distinguishing everywhere,
Dividing up the world to conquer it.

And think also how funny knowledge is:
You may succeed in learning many trees
And calling off their names as you go by,
But their comprehensive silence stays the same.

 Ms. Sexton went out looking for the gods.
She began looking in the sky
—expecting a large white angel with a blue crotch.

No one.

She looked next in all the learned books
and the print spat back at her.

No one

She made a pilgrimage to the great poet
and he belched in her face.

No one.

She prayed in all the churches of the world
and learned a great deal about culture.

No one.

She went to the Atlantic, the Pacific, for surely God...

No one.

She went to the Buddha, the Brahma, the Pyramids
and found immense postcards.

No one.

Then she journeyed back to her own house
and the gods of the world were shut in the lavatory.

At last!
she cried out,
and locked the door.

 A good man is seized by the police
and spirited away. Months later
someone brags that he shot him once
through the back of the head
with a Walther 7.65, and his life
ended just there. Those who loved
him go on searching the cafés
in the Barrio Chino or the bars
near the harbor. A comrade swears
he saw him at a distance buying
two kilos of oranges in the market
of San José and called out, "Andrés,
Andrés," but instead of turning
to a man he'd known since child-
hood and opening his great arms
wide, he scurried off, the oranges
tumbling out of the damp sack, one
after another, a short bright trail
left on the sidewalk to say,
Farewell! Farewell to what? I ask.
I asked then and I ask now. I first
heard the story fifty years ago;
it became part of the mythology I
hauled with me from one graveyard
to another, this belief in the power
of my yearning. The dead are every-

where, crowding the narrow streets
that jut out from the wide boulevard
on which we take our morning walk.
They stand in the cold shadows
of men and women come to sell
themselves to anyone, they stride
along beside me and stop when I
stop to admire the bright garlands
or the little pyramids of fruit,
they reach a hand out to give
money or to take change, they say
"Good morning" or "Thank you," they
turn with me and retrace my steps
back to the bare little room I've 
come to call home. Patiently,
they stand beside me staring out
over the soiled roofs of the world
until the light fades and we are
all one or no one. They ask for
so little, a prayer now and then,
a toast to their health which is
our health, a few lies no one reads
incised on a dull plaque between
a pharmacy and a sports store,
the least little daily miracle.

 MOSES ON THE NILE. 
 
 ("Mes soeurs, l'onde est plus fraiche.") 
 
 {TO THE FLORAL GAMES, Toulouse, Feb. 10, 1820.} 


 "Sisters! the wave is freshest in the ray 
 Of the young morning; the reapers are asleep; 
 The river bank is lonely: come away! 
 The early murmurs of old Memphis creep 
 Faint on my ear; and here unseen we stray,— 
 Deep in the covert of the grove withdrawn, 
 Save by the dewy eye-glance of the dawn. 
 
 "Within my father's palace, fair to see, 
 Shine all the Arts, but oh! this river side, 
 Pranked with gay flowers, is dearer far to me 
 Than gold and porphyry vases bright and wide; 
 How glad in heaven the song-bird carols free! 
 Sweeter these zephyrs float than all the showers 
 Of costly odors in our royal bowers. 
 
 "The sky is pure, the sparkling stream is clear: 
 Unloose your zones, my maidens! and fling down 
 To float awhile upon these bushes near 
 Your blue transparent robes: take off my crown, 
 And take away my jealous veil; for here 
 To-day we shall be joyous while we lave 
 Our limbs amid the murmur of the wave. 
 
 "Hasten; but through the fleecy mists of morn, 
 What do I see? Look ye along the stream! 
 Nay, timid maidens—we must not return! 
 Coursing along the current, it would seem 
 An ancient palm-tree to the deep sea borne, 
 That from the distant wilderness proceeds, 
 Downwards, to view our wondrous Pyramids. 
 
 "But stay! if I may surely trust mine eye,— 
 It is the bark of Hermes, or the shell 
 Of Iris, wafted gently to the sighs 
 Of the light breeze along the rippling swell; 
 But no: it is a skiff where sweetly lies 
 An infant slumbering, and his peaceful rest 
 Looks as if pillowed on his mother's breast. 
 
 "He sleeps—oh, see! his little floating bed 
 Swims on the mighty river's fickle flow, 
 A white dove's nest; and there at hazard led 
 By the faint winds, and wandering to and fro, 
 The cot comes down; beneath his quiet head 
 The gulfs are moving, and each threatening wave 
 Appears to rock the child upon a grave. 
 
 "He wakes—ah, maids of Memphis! haste, oh, haste! 
 He cries! alas!—What mother could confide 
 Her offspring to the wild and watery waste? 
 He stretches out his arms, the rippling tide 
 Murmurs around him, where all rudely placed, 
 He rests but with a few frail reeds beneath, 
 Between such helpless innocence and death. 
 
 "Oh! take him up! Perchance he is of those 
 Dark sons of Israel whom my sire proscribes; 
 Ah! cruel was the mandate that arose 
 Against most guiltless of the stranger tribes! 
 Poor child! my heart is yearning for his woes, 
 I would I were his mother; but I'll give 
 If not his birth, at least the claim to live." 
 
 Thus Iphis spoke; the royal hope and pride 
 Of a great monarch; while her damsels nigh, 
 Wandered along the Nile's meandering side; 
 And these diminished beauties, standing by 
 The trembling mother; watching with eyes wide 
 Their graceful mistress, admired her as stood, 
 More lovely than the genius of the flood! 
 
 The waters broken by her delicate feet 
 Receive the eager wader, as alone 
 By gentlest pity led, she strives to meet 
 The wakened babe; and, see, the prize is won! 
 She holds the weeping burden with a sweet 
 And virgin glow of pride upon her brow, 
 That knew no flush save modesty's till now. 
 
 Opening with cautious hands the reedy couch, 
 She brought the rescued infant slowly out 
 Beyond the humid sands; at her approach 
 Her curious maidens hurried round about 
 To kiss the new-born brow with gentlest touch; 
 Greeting the child with smiles, and bending nigh 
 Their faces o'er his large, astonished eye! 
 
 Haste thou who, from afar, in doubt and fear, 
 Dost watch, with straining eyes, the fated boy— 
 The loved of heaven! come like a stranger near, 
 And clasp young Moses with maternal joy; 
 Nor fear the speechless transport and the tear 
 Will e'er betray thy fond and hidden claim, 
 For Iphis knows not yet a mother's name! 
 
 With a glad heart, and a triumphal face, 
 The princess to the haughty Pharaoh led 
 The humble infant of a hated race, 
 Bathed with the bitter tears a parent shed; 
 While loudly pealing round the holy place 
 Of Heaven's white Throne, the voice of angel choirs 
 Intoned the theme of their undying lyres! 
 
 "No longer mourn thy pilgrimage below— 
 O Jacob! let thy tears no longer swell 
 The torrent of the Egyptian river: Lo! 
 Soon on the Jordan's banks thy tents shall dwell; 
 And Goshen shall behold thy people go 
 Despite the power of Egypt's law and brand, 
 From their sad thrall to Canaan's promised land. 
 
 "The King of Plagues, the Chosen of Sinai, 
 Is he that, o'er the rushing waters driven, 
 A vigorous hand hath rescued for the sky; 
 Ye whose proud hearts disown the ways of heaven! 
 Attend, be humble! for its power is nigh 
 Israel! a cradle shall redeem thy worth— 
 A Cradle yet shall save the widespread earth!" 
 
 Dublin University Magazine, 1839