Page:Poems by Isaac Rosenberg (1922).djvu/73

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MOSES

Moses

Fine! Fine!
See, in my brain
What madmen have rushed through
And like a tornado
Torn up the tight roots
Of some dead universe:
The old clay is broken
For a power to soak in and knit
It all into tougher tissues
To hold life;
Pricking my nerves till the brain might crack
It boils to my finger-tips,
Till my hands ache to grip
The hammer—the lone hammer
That breaks lives into a road
Through which my genius drives.
Pharaoh well peruked and oiled,
And your admirable pyramids,
And your interminable procession
Of crowded kings,
You are my little fishing rods
Wherewith I catch the fish
To suit my hungry belly.
I am rough now, and new, and will have no tailor.

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