When to their roost the sacred ibis file,

Mosquito-thin against the fading West,

And palm-trees, fishing in the crimson Nile,

Dangle their windless effigies of rest,

Scarce to the moon’s hushed conquest of the blue

Have waked the wingless warblers of the bogs,

Or to the lunar sabbath staunchly true

The jackals sung their first selenologues,

When through the waste, far-flung as from a steeple

First in low rumours, then in sounding choir,

The lamentation of an ancient people

Sounds from the waters and the sands of fire.

The centuries have heard that plaint persist,

Since Pharaoh’s foreman stood with lifted quirt,

Or swung the bloody sjambok in his fist

To cut the sluggard through his hairy shirt.

This was the strain, the Amphionic lyre,

By which were carted Thebes’ colossal stones,

Which though it lifted pyramid and spire

Yet rang their ruin in prophetic tones.

Still theirs the agony, still theirs the bondage,

Still theirs the toil, their recompense forlorn

To crop the thistles, bite the withered frondage

And rasp the bitter stubble of the corn.

Still as if Pharaoh’s sjambok cut their rumps,

Sick for some Zion of the vast inane,

The effort of a thousand rusty pumps

Wheezes untiring through their shrill refrain.

Where royal suns descending left no stains,

Where forms of power and beauty change and pass,

One epic to eternity remains—

The heehawhallelujahs of the Ass.