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 A steel to break his manacles: hard for us Moses has made him overseer. O, his slits Pry—pry.... For what?... To sell to Imra.... [ABINOAH _is seen approaching_.] Sh! The thin-lipped abomination! Zig-zagging haschish tours in a fine style: It were delightful labour making bricks, Knowing they would kiss friendly with his head. ABINOAH [_Who has been taking haschish; and who has one obsession, hatred of Jews._] Dirt-draggled mongrels, circumcised slaves, You puddle with your lousy gibberish The holy air, Pharaoh’s own tributary: Filthy manure for Pharaoh’s flourishing, I’ll circumcise and make holy your tongues, And stop one outlet to your profanation. [_To the_ OLD HEBREW.] I’ve never seen one beg so for a blow; Too soft am I to resist such entreaty. [_Beats him._] Your howling holds the earnest energies You cheat from Pharaoh when you make his bricks. AN AGED MINSTREL [_Sings from a distance._] Taut is the air and tied the trees, The leaves lie as on a hand; God’s unthinkable imagination Invents new tortures for nature. And when the air is soft and the leaves Feel free and push and tremble, Will they not remember and say How wonderful to have lived? [_The_ OLD HEBREW _is agitated and murmurs_.] Messiah, Messiah.... That voice.... O, he has beaten my sight out.... I see Like a rain about a devouring fire.... [_The Minstrel sings._] Ye who best God awhile, O hear: your wealth Is but His cunning to see to make death more hard, Your iron sinews take more pain in breaking; And he has made the market for your beauty Too poor to buy although you die to sell. OLD HEBREW I am crazed with whips.... I hear a Messiah. YOUNG HEBREW The venerable man will question this.