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| BENEATH the Memnonian shadows of Memphis, it rose from the slime, | |
| A reed of the river, self-hid, as though shunning the curse of its crime, | |
| And it shook as it measured in whispers the lapses of tide and of time. | |
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| It shuddered, it stooped, and was dumb, when the kings of the earth passed along. | |
| For what could this reed of the river in the race of the swift and the strong,— | 5 |
| Where the wolf met the bear and the panther, blood-bathed, at the banquets of wrong? | |
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| These loved the bright brass, the hard steel, and the gods that kill and condemn; | |
| Yea, theirs was the robe silver-tissued, and theirs was the sun-colored gem; | |
| If they touched thee, O reed, ’t was to wing with swift death thy sharp arrowy stem. | |
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| Then the strong took the corn and the wine, and the poor, who had scattered the seed, | 10 |
| Went forth to the wilderness weeping, and sought out a sign in their need, | |
| And the gods laughed in rapturous thunder, and showed them the wind-shaken reed. | |
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| O dower of the poor and the helpless! O key to Thought’s palace unpriced! | |
| When the strong mocked with cruel crimson and spat in the face of their Christ, | |
| When the thorns were his crown—in his faint palm this reed for a sceptre sufficed; | 15 |
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| This reed in whose fire-pith Prometheus brought life, and the arts began, | |
| When Man, the god of time’s twilight, grew godlike by dying for Man, | |
| Ere Redemption fell bound and bleeding, priest-carved to the priests’ poor plan. | |
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| Come hither, ye kings of the earth, and ye priests without pity, draw near: | |
| Ye girded your loins for a curse, and ye builded dark temples to Fear; | 20 |
| Ye gathered from rune-scroll and symbol great syllables deathful and drear. | |
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| Then ye summoned mankind to your Idol, the many bowed down to the few, | |
| As ye told in loud anthems how all things were framed for the saints and for you,— | |
| “Lord, not on these sun-blistered rocks, but on Gideon’s fleece falls thy dew.” | |
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| Man was taken from prison to judgment; a bulrush he bent at your nod; | 25 |
| Ye stripped him of rights, his last garment, and bared his broad back for the rod, | |
| And ye lisped, as he writhed down in anguish, “This woe is the sweet will of God.” | |
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| But lo! whilst ye braided the thorn-crown for Man and the children of men, | |
| Whilst ye reft him of worship and wealth, and he stood mute and dazed in your den, | |
| A reed-stalk remained for a sceptre; ye left in his hand the pen. | 30 |
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| Sweet wooer, strong winner of kingship, above crown, crosier and sword, | |
| By thee shall the mighty be broken, and the spoil which their might hath stored | |
| Shall be stamped small as dust, and be wafted away by the breath of the Lord. | |
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| His decree is gone forth, it is planted, and these are the words which he spake,— | |
| No smouldering flax of first fancy, no full flame of thought, will he slake, | 35 |
| No bruisëd reed of the writer shall the strength of eternities break. | |
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| Behold your sign and your sceptre. Arise, imperial reed, | |
| Go forth to discrown king and captain and disinherit the creed; | |
| O strike through the iron war-tower and cast out the murderer’s seed; | |
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| Go forth—like the swell of the spring-tide, sweep on in measureless away, | 40 |
| Till raised over each throned falsehood, in bright omnipresence like day, | |
| Thou shalt bruise them with rod of iron, and break them like vessels of clay. | |
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