The Works of Abraham Cowley/Volume 2/The Plagues of Egypt
THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT.
Is this thy bravery, Man, is this thy pride?Rebel to God, and slave to all beside!Captiv'd by every thing! and only freeTo fly from thine own liberty!All creatures, the Creator said, were thine;No creature but might since say, "Man is mine."In black Egyptian slavery we lie;And sweat and toil in the vile drudgeryOf tyrant Sin;To which we trophies raise, and wear out all our breathIn building up the monuments of Death;We, the choice race, to God and angels kin! In vain the prophets and apostles comeTo call us home,Home to the promis'd Canaan above,Which does with nourishing milk and pleasant honey flow;And even i' th' way to which we should be fedWith angels' tasteful bread:But we, alas! the flesh-pots love,We love the very leeks and sordid roots below.
In vain we judgments feel, and wonders see!In vain did God to descend hither deign;He was his own ambassador in vain,Our Moses and our guide himself to be!We will not let ourselves to go,And with worse harden'd hearts do our own Pharaohs grow.Ah! lest at last we perish so,Think, stubborn Man, think of th' Egyptian Prince(Hard of belief and will, but not so hard as thou);Think with what dreadful proofs God did convinceThe feeble arguments that human power could show;Think what plagues attend on thee,Who Moses' God dost now refuse, more oft than Moses he.
"If from some god you come" (said the proud kingWith half a smile and half a frown; "But what god can to Egypt be unknown?)"What sign, what powers, what credence, do you bring?""Behold his seal! behold his hand!"Cries Moses, and casts down th' all-mighty wand.Th' all-mighty wand scarce touch'd the earth,When, with an undiscerned birth,Th' all-mighty wand a serpent grew,And his long half in painted folds behind him drew:Upwards his threatening tail he threw;Upwards he cast his threatening head:He gap'd and hiss'd aloud,With flaming eyes survey'd the trembling crowd,And, like a basilisk, almost look'd th' assembly dead;Swift fled th' amazed king, the guards before him fled.
Jannes and Jambres stopp'd their flight,And with proud words allay'd th' affright."The God of slaves," said they, "how can he be"More powerful than their masters' deity?"And down they cast their rods,And mutter'd secret sounds that charm the servile gods.The evil spirits their charms obey,And in a subtle cloud they snatch the rods away,And serpents in their place the airy jugglers lay.Serpents in Egypt's monstrous landWere ready still at hand,And all at the Old Serpent's first command. And they too gap'd, and they too hiss'd,And they their threatening tails did twist;But straight on both the Hebrew-serpent flew,Broke both their active backs, and both it slew,And both almost at once devour'd;So much was over-power'd,By God's miraculous creation,His servant's, Nature's, slightly-wrought and feeble generation!
On the fam'd bank the prophets stood,Touch'd with their rod, and wounded, all the flood;Flood now no more, but a long vein of putrid blood.The helpless fish were foundIn their strange current drown'd:The herbs and trees wash'd by the mortal tideAbout it blush'd and dy'd:Th' amazed crocodiles made haste to ground;From their vast trunks the dropping gore they spied,Thought it their own, and dreadfully aloud they cried.Nor all thy priests, nor thou,Oh king! couldst ever showFrom whence thy wandering Nile begins his course—Of this new Nile thou seest the sacred source;And, as thy land that does o'erflow,Take heed lest this do so!What plague more just could on thy waters fall?The Hebrew infants' murder stains them all: The kind, instructing punishment enjoy;Whom the red river cannot mend, the Red-sea shall destroy.
The river yet gave one instruction more;And, from the rotting fish and unconcocted gore(Which was but water just before),A loathsome host was quickly made,That scal'd the banks, and with loud noise did all the country' invade.As Nilus when he quits his sacred bed(But like a friend he visits all the landWith welcome presents in his hand)So did this Living Tide the fields o'erspread:In vain th' alarmed country triesTo kill, their noisome enemies;From th' unexhausted source still new recruits arise.Nor does the earth these greedy troops suffice,The towns and houses they possess,The temples and the palaces,Nor Pharaoh, nor his gods, they fear;Both their importune croakings hear.Unsatiate yet, they mount up higher,Where never sun-born Frog durst to aspire,And in the silken beds their slimy members place;A luxury unknown before to all the watery race!
The water thus her wonders did produce;But both were to no use;As yet the sorcerers' mimick power serv'd for excuse. Try what the earth will do," said God, and lo!They strook the earth a fertile blow,And all the dust did straight to stir begin;One would have thought some sudden wind't had been;But, lo! 't was nimble life was got within!And all the little springs did move,And every dust did an arm'd vermin prove,Of an unknown and new-created kind,Such as the magick-gods could neither make nor find.The wretched shameful Foe allow'd no restEither to man or beast.Not Pharaoh from th' unquiet plague could be,With all his change of raiments, free;The devils themselves confess'dThis was God's hand; and 't was but just,To punish thus man's pride, to punish dust with dust.
Lo! the third element does his plagues prepare,And swarming clouds of insects fill the air;With sullen noise they take their flight,And march in bodies infinite;In vain ’tis day above, ’tis still beneath them night.Of harmful Flies the nations numberlessCompos'd this mighty army's spacious boast;Of different manners, different languages;And different habits, too, they wore,And different arms they bore; Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 2 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/198 Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 2 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/199 Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 2 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/200 Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 2 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/201 Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 2 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/202 Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 2 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/203 Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 2 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/204 Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 2 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/205 Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 2 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/206 Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 2 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/207 When on both sides they saw the roaring mainBroke loose from his invisible chain!They saw the monstrous death and watery warCome rolling down loud ruin from afar!In vain some backward and some forwards flyWith helpless haste; in vain they cryTo their cœlestial Beasts for aid;In vain their guilty king they' upbraid;In vain on Moses he, and Moses' God, does call,With a repentance true too late;They're compass'd round with a devouring fate,That draws, like a strong net, the mighty sea upon them all.