_Moses_.—The crowned king who broke his solemn promise To let our tribes depart, might well have spar'd A pointless sarcasm and unjust reproach To human policy. If I have stoop'd So far as not to tell thee _all_ the truth, Be sure it was to spare thy pride alone, And naught beside. But glance thine eye around— Behold our people helpless and unarm'd, Beaten with stripes, o'erlabor'd, driven and watch'd By spears of vigilant armies. Be thou judge If that deliverance can be their achievement, Or less than God can free them from thy hands; Then say if purpos'd fraud can be a means With him who wrought such wonders in the land. Let us depart, great prince. The voice of Justice, True wisdom's dictates, and thy prescient fears Of greater evils yet befalling Egypt, All speak one word; that word—Emancipation. _Pharaoh_.—Setting aside thy magic, or the wrath, If such it be, of Israel's God, what wisdom Worthy a prince's thought, would be in this? _Moses_.—The highest and the greatest—that which chooses Nobly t' endure a smaller present evil, And shun a distant great calamity. As truly as the waves of distant ocean, Chasing each other, rise by turns and fall— As truly as the air, surcharged with heat, Gendereth the thunderstorm which clears and cools it— So surely, in the troubled sea of life, Wrong wreaketh wrong, and evil followeth evil, And moral tempests purge the crimes of nations. When will the sons of men be taught this lesson? What tears, what blood must flow, what lands be ravaged, What empires overthrown, or peopled only With widows and with orphans, ere they learn it? The wrong is ours, but such redress we seek not; God hath our quarrel taken in his hands: Our fathers journey'd here, th' invited guests Of Egypt's king, and were by him receiv'd With hospitality and royal bounty, Which well became a prince whom Joseph serv'd. I need not tell thee of the slow encroachments By which the alien guests became thy subjects, Or call to mind the hard and stern decree Which, in a day, transferr'd us from subjection To chain'd and absolute bondage; or the edict Which gave our sons to death as soon as born: These things are fresh in memory—but oblivion Shall cover all, if thou but set us free. _Pharaoh, to one of his Council_.—Osirion, I have ever held thee wise; Speak thy opinion of this man's petition.