Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MOTHER EGYPT, by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MOTHER EGYPT, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Dark-browed, she broods with weary lids
Last Line: To see thy more than moslem deed.
Alternate Author Name(s): Miller, Joaquin
Subject(s): Egypt


Dark-browed, she broods with weary lids
Beside her Sphynx and Pyramids,
With low and never-lifted head.
If she be dead, respect the dead;
If she be weeping, let her weep;
If she be sleeping, let her sleep;
For lo, this woman named the stars!
She suckled at her tawny dugs
Your Moses while you reeked in wars
And prowled your woods, nude, painted thugs.

Then back, brave England; back in peace
To Christian isles of fat increase!
Go back! Else bid your high priests mold
Their meek bronze Christs to cannon bold;
Take down their cross from proud St. Paul's
And coin it into cannon-balls!
You tent not far from Nazareth;
Your camps trench where his child-feet strayed.
If Christ had seen this work of death!
If Christ had seen these ships invade!

I think the patient Christ had said,
"Go back, brave men! Take up your dead;
Draw down your great ships to the seas;
Repass the Gates of Hercules.
Go back to wife with babe at breast,
And leave lorn Egypt to her rest."
Or is Christ dead, as Egypt is?
Ah, England, hear me yet again;
There's something grimly wrong in this --
So like some gray, sad woman slain.

What would you have your mother do?
Hath she not done enough for you?
Go back! And when you learn to read,
Come read this obelisk. Her deed
Like yonder awful forehead is
Disdainful silence. Like to this
What lessons have you writ in stone
To passing nations that shall stand?
Why, years as hers will leave you lone
And level as yon yellow sand.

Saint George? Your lions? Whence are they?
From awful, silent Africa.
This Egypt is the lion's lair;
Beware, brave Albion, beware!
I feel the very Nile should rise
To drive you from this sacrifice.
And if the seven plagues should come?
The red seas swallow sword and steed?
Lo! Christian lands stand mute and dumb
To see thy more than Moslem deed.





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