"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 land

Were 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 feelle 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 found

In their strange current drown'd:

The herbs and trees wash'd by the mortal tide
About 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 show

From 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 land

With welcome presents in his hand)

So did this Living Tide the fields o'erspread :
In vain th' alarmed country tries

To 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 rest

Either to man or beast.

Not Pharaoh from th' unquiet plague could be,
With all his change of raiments, free;

The devils themselves confess'd

This 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 preparę,
And swarming clouds of insects fill the air;
With sullen noise they take their flight,

And march in bodies infinite;

In vain 't is day above, 't is still beneath them night.
Of harmful Flies the nations numberless
Compos'd this mighty army's spacious boast;
Of different manners, different languages;
And different habits, too, they wore,

And different arms they bore;

Heaven itself is angry next;

(Woe to man, when Heaven is vext!)
With sullen brow it frown'd,

And murmur'd first in an imperfect sound :
Till Moses, lifting up his hand,
Waves the expected signal of his wand;

And all the full-charg'd clouds in ranged squadrons

move,

And fill the spacious plains above;
Through which the rolling thunder first does play,
And opens wide the tempest's noisy way.
And straight a stony shower

Of monstrous Hail does downwards pour,
Such as ne'er winter yet brought forth,
From all her stormy magazines of the north.
It all the beasts and men abroad did slay,
O'er the defaced corpse, like monuments, lay;
The houses and strong-body'd trees it broke,

Nor ask'd aid from the thunder's stroke;
The thunder but for terror through it flew,
The hail alone the work could do.

The dismal lightnings all around,

Some flying through the air, some running on the ground,

Some swimming o'er the water's face,

Fill'd with bright horror every place;

One would have thought, their dreadful day to have

seen,

The very hail, and rain itself, had kindled been.