POEMS BY ISAAC ROSENBERG
They'd make a bonfire of themselves to be
Mouthed in the squares, broad in the public eye:
And whose backs break, whose lives are mauled, after
It all falls flat? His tender airs chill me—
As thoughts of sleep to a man tiptoed night-long
Roped round his neck, for sleep means death to him.
Oh, he is kind to us!
Your safe teeth chatter when they hear a step:
He left them yours because his cunning way
Would brag the wrong against his humane act
By Pharaoh; so gain more favour than he lost.
Young Hebrew
Help him not then, and push your safety away:
I for my part will be his backward eye,
His hands when they are shut. Ah! Abinoah!
Like a bad smell from the soul of Moses dipt
In the mire of lust he hangs round him;
And if his slit-like eyes could tear right out
The pleasure Moses on his daughter had,
She'd be as virgin as ere she came nestling
Into that fierce unmanageable blood,
Flying from her loathed father. O, that slave
Has hammered from the anvil of her beauty
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