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Poems by Isaac Rosenberg

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Abinoah<br />

—<br />

:<br />

POEMS BY ISAAC ROSENBERG<br />

They'd make a bonfire of themselves to be<br />

Mouthed in the squares, broad in the public eye^J<br />

And whose backs break, whose lives are mauled,<br />

after<br />

It all falls Hat? His tender airs chill me<br />

As thoughts of sleep to a man tiptoed night-long<br />

Roped round his neck, for sleep means death to<br />

him.<br />

Oh, he is kind to us !<br />

Your safe teeth chatter when they hear a step<br />

He left them yours because his cunning way<br />

Would brag the wrong against his humane act<br />

By Pharaoh ; so gain more favour than he lost.<br />

Youxc;<br />

Hebrew<br />

Help him not then, and push your safety away :<br />

I for my part will be his backward eye,<br />

His hands when they are shut. Ah !<br />

!<br />

Like a bad smell from the soul of Moses dipt<br />

In the mire of lust he hangs round him ;<br />

And if his slit-like eyes could tear right out<br />

The pleasure Moses on his daughter had,<br />

She'd be as virgin as ere she came nestling<br />

Into that fierce unmanageable blood,<br />

Flying from her loathed father. O, that slave<br />

Has hammered from the anvil of her beauty<br />

68

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